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ADDRESSES 

World's  Social  Progress 
Congress 


SAN  FRANCISCO.  CALIFORNIA 

April  One  to  Eleven 

Nineteen   Hundred  and  Fifteen 

Auspices  Committee  of  One  Hundred 


Edited  by 
WILLIAM  M.  BELL.  D.D..  LL.  D. 

Bishop  Pacific  District  Church  of  the  United  Brethren  in  Christ 
President  World's  Social  Progress  Council 


COMMITTEE  OF  ONE  HUNDRED 

BISHOP  EDWIN  H.  HUGHES.  D.D..  LL.  D. 
Chairman,  San  Francisco 

REV.  H.  H.  BELL,  D.D. 
Exposition  Secretary.  San  Francisco 


Printed  for  the  World's  Sodal  Progress  Council 

by 

THE  OTTERBEIN  PRESS 

Dayton,  Ohio 

1915 


Copyright.  1915, 

by 

WILLIAM  M.  BE^L 


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THE  WORLD'S  SOCIAL  PROGRESS  CONGRESS. 

Authorized  and  promoted  by  the  Committee  of  One 
Hundred  in  charge  of  religious  work  at  the  Panama- 
Pacific  International  Exposition,  the  committee  being  con- 
stituted by  the  Federal  Council  of  the  Churches  of  Christ 
in  America,  and  directly  in  charge  of  a  special  committee, 
as  follows: 

Bishop  William  M.  Bell,  D.D.,  LL.D.,  Chairman. 

Governor  Hiram  M.  Johnson. 

Hon.  Richmond  P.  Hobson. 

Hon.  J.  Stitt  Wilson. 

President  Benjamin  Ide  Wheeler. 

Rev.  Hugh  W.  Gilchrist,  D.D. 

Rev.  J.  A.  Geisinger,  D.D. 

Rev.  J.  E.  Squires,  D.D. 

President  John  Henry  Whyte. 

Professor  C.  S.  Gardner,  D.D. 

Chancellor  David  Starr  Jordan. 

Bishop  Francis  J.  McConnell,  D.D.,  LL.D, 

Professor  E.  A.  Wicher,  D.D. 

The  sessions  were  all  held  in  Hall  B,  Civic  Auditorium, 
San  Francisco,  California,  April  1-11,  1915. 

Professor  P.  P.  Bilhorn,  of  Chicago,  conducted  the 
music,  supported  by  a  large  chorus. 

At  a  business  session,  the  congress  unanimously  adopted 
the  following: 

DECLARATION. 

1.  That  in  our  judgment  the  time  is  opportune  for  a 
permanent  organization  that  shall  undertake  to  develop 
and  carry  forward  a  specific  and  constructive  program  in 
behalf  of  Social  Progress,  which  shall  be,  please  God,  as 

3 

540954 


Addresses  World's  Social  Progress  Congress 

largely  as  our  resources  and  ability  shall  make  possible,  a 
world-wide,  co-operative  effort. 

2.  That  we  proceed  to  organize  the  World's  Social 
Progress  Council  by  electing  officers  to  lead  us  in  carry- 
ing forward  this  work  and  that  we  authorize  the  said 
officers  as  an  Executive  Committee  to  complete  the  organ- 
ization as  in  their  judgment  shall  be  deemed  wise  and  best. 

3.  That  we  authorize  a  session  of  the  World's  Social 
Progress  Council  at  such  time  and  place  in  1916  as  the 
officers  or  Executive  Committee  may  deem  advisable,  and 
also  the  prosecution  of  the  work  of  the  council  as  exten- 
sively as  shall  be  found  possible,  in  the  United  States, 
Canada,  Mexico,  and  any  other  country  in  which  the  good 
work  in  any  way  may  be  promoted. 

4.  That  we  will  duly  exalt  the  principle  of  individual 
character  and  responsibility  as  the  basis  for  social  prog- 
ress. 

5.  That  we  recognize  the  inevitable  reactions  of  en- 
vironment on  the  nature  and  achievements  of  human 
kind,  and  call  attention  to  the  responsibility  of  society  for 
the  securing  as  nearly  as  may  be  of  a  favoring  environ- 
ment in  so  far  as  it  is  a  matter  of  human  control  and 
such  as  shall  be  adapted  to  the  highest  efficiency  and 
development  of  the  race. 

6.  That  we  are  of  judgment  that  the  religious  organ- 
izations together  with  all  the  other  institutions  and  or- 
ganizations of  civiHzation  should  at  once  identify  them- 
selves under  a  sane  and  aggressive  leadership  in  behalf  of 
social  justice  and  efficiency  in  order  that  every  removable 
human  handicap  shall  be  lifted  from  the  back  of  our 
common  humanity. 

7.  That  a  satisfactory  definition  of,  and  program  for, 
social  progress  shall  be  wrought  out  in  the  light  of  the 
highest  and  worthiest  ideals  known  to  mankind. 

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Addresses  World's  Social  Progress  Congress 

8.  That  civil  government  should  genuinely  serve  the 
cause  of  social  progress  by  heartily  acknowledging  the 
sovereignty  of  the  people  and  nurturing  that  sovereignty 
in  constructive  activity,  international  justice,  friendliness, 
and  good  will. 

9.  That  we  will  work  loyally  for  permanent  peace 
among  men  and  nations,  not  merely  for  absence  of  strife, 
but  for  co-operative  and  constructive  relations  based  on 
mutual  help  and  mutual  respect. 

At  a  business  session  on  April  9,  the  Committee  on 
Nominations  reported,  placing  in  nomination  the  follow- 
ing officers,  and  the  same  were  duly  and  unanimously 
elected : 

President,  Bishop  William  M.  Bell,  Los  Angeles,  Cal. 

Secretary,  Prof.  E.  A.  Wicher,  San  Anselmo,  Cal. 

Treasurer,  A.  W.  Naylor,  First  National  Bank,  Berk- 
eley, Cal. 

SUMMARY. 

1.  The  congress  has  been  a  marvelous  manifestation 
of  the  rising  tide  of  interest  in  behalf  of  social  solution 
and  advancement  in  that  speakers  from  different  parts  of 
the  world  have  willingly  and  even  enthusiastically  trav- 
eled long  distances  to  speak  on  the  platform  with  no  re- 
ward expected  except  the  reward  that  comes  from  heart 
satisfaction  because  one  has  done  by  so  much  the  more 
his  duty  in  promoting  a  new  and  commanding  social  con- 
science that  shall  assert  itself  in  behalf  of  better  condi- 
tions in  modem  civilization. 

2.  The  grade  of  work  done  from  the  platform  has 
been  exceptionally  high.  No  speaker  was  invited  unless 
well  accredited  in  the  light  of  real  and  notable  achieve- 
ment with  the  result  that  the  entire  list  of  addresses  has 
brought  no  mere  average  production  to  public  hearing 
and  attention.    Human  tongues  have  flamed  into  the  most 

5 


Addresses  World's  Social  Progress  Congress 

sublime  and  persuasive  eloquence  as  pleas  have  been 
made  in  a  sane  and  orderly  way  for  the  removal  of  the 
predatory,  atrocious,  and  unjust  aspects  of  our  present 
social  order.  Just  and  discriminating  appreciation  of 
every  good  in  modern  civilization  has  constantly  been  in 
evidence  while  the  outreach  toward  progress  and  im- 
provement has  been  keen  and  insistent. 

3.  The  utterances  of  the  platform  have  been  emo- 
tional and  scientific.  The  emotion  of  hate  has  been  dep- 
recated and  that  of  brotherhood  exalted.  Demand  has 
been  made  that  nations  as  well  as  individuals  shall  ex- 
emplify moral  genuineness  and  that  governments  shall  be 
held  as  responsible  as  individuals  for  good  will,  sincerity, 
and  disinterestedness  in  order  that  the  evolution  of  the 
social  order  shall  be  unmistakably  constructive.  The  pro- 
grams suggested  for  human  betterment  have  been  sane, 
inspiring,  and  assuring.  Nothing  weird  or  fanciful  has 
been  in  evidence,  but  the  healthful,  moral,  stable,  and  con- 
firmed methods  of  social  advancement  have  been  brought 
forward.  The  note  of  optimism  and  courage  has  been 
dominant  throughout.  Admitting  the  difficulties  of  the 
task  at  hand,  and  allowing  for  the  tenacity  of  the  agencies 
of  evil,  there  has  nevertheless  been  manifest  in  every  ses- 
sion a  sense  of  social  potency  that  is  most  heartening. 

4.  Existing  institutions  and  organizations  have  been 
duly  honored  while  a  mighty  tide  rose  daily  toward  new 
creations  and  alignments  in  so  far  as  the  current  social 
awakening  shall  make  necessary  and  desirable.  A  re- 
sourceful and  regnant  spontaneity  answering  to  the 
world-wide  call  for  unselfish  and  sacrificial  life  was  en- 
gendered with  cumulative  power.  The  new  adjustments 
called  for  in  relating  the  total  wealth  to  the  total  and 
universal  human  necessity  were  discussed  fairly,  fear- 
lessly, and  sympathetically.     With  all  that  is  transpiring 

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Addresses  World's  Social  Progress  Congress 

in  the  world  that  is  depressing,  the  skies  were  never  as 
radiant  with  hope  as  to-day.  The  race  is  facing  forward 
and  not  backward.  The  spiritual,  social,  moral,  and  eco- 
nomic entities  are  rising  in  coUossal  proportions  and  the 
Almighty  Jehovah  is  lifting  up  into  a  holy  persistence 
and  importunity  the  hearts  of  those  who  must  lead  the 
hosts  of  brotherhood,  good  will,  and  service  to  mankind. 
5.  Unmistakably  the  organization  of  the  World's  So- 
cial Progress  Council  presages  a  far-reaching  mobilization 
of  the  forces  that  contend  for  the  humanizing  of  industry, 
economics,  and  civil  government,  A  continuity  of  edu- 
cational effort  is  planned  together  with  such  concrete  ap- 
plications of  the  ideals  of  the  council  as  just  adjustments 
shall  dictate  and  human  resources  and  skill  shall  make 
possible.  The  extension  of  the  work  of  the  council  on 
lines  indicated  in  the  San  Francisco  program  is  in  mind. 
Just  as  rapidly  as  means  are  available  for  the  work  of 
extension,  local  councils  will  be  chartered  and  developed 
throughout  the  United  States  and  in  the  regions  beyond. 
From  expressions  of  interest  and  appreciation  from  men 
and  women  who  are  influential  and  able  to  give  assist- 
ance, this  support  seems  reasonably  assured.  Correspond- 
ence and  remittances  may  be  addressed  to  Bishop  William 
M.  Bell,  President,  227  West  Fifty-first  Street,  Los  An- 
geles, Cal. ;  Prof.  E.  A.  Wicher,  Secretary,  San  Anselmo, 
Cal. ;  A,  W.  Naylor,  Treasurer,  First  National  Bank, 
Berkeley,  Cal. 


INTRODUCTION. 

This  volume  of  addresses  delivered  at  the  World's 
Social  Progress  Congress,  assembled  in  San  Francisco, 
California,  April  1-11,  1915,  is  for  most  part  the  work  of 
a  stenographer  and  due  allowance  must  be  made  for  such 
mistakes  as  the  fact  would  indicate.  It  should  be  said, 
however,  that  the  work  was  done  by  one  skilled  and  effi- 
cient, and  it  is  the  belief  of  the  undersigned  that  very  few 
mistakes  have  been  made.  Not  all  the  addresses  are  in- 
cluded because  of  the  fact  that  the  services  of  the  stenog- 
rapher did  not  cover  the  entire  eleven  days.  It  is  believed 
that  the  contents  of  the  volume  will  justify  its  publica- 
tion as  being  a  part  of  the  product  of  the  Committee  of 
One  Hundred,  though  as  a  matter  of  course,  each  speaker 
is  himself  responsible  for  his  utterances.  The  addresses 
are  on  subjects  of  current  interest  and  urgency.  That 
they  will  be  given  a  wide  and  profitable  reading  is  well 
assured.  Many  friends  who  heard  one  or  more  of  the 
addresses  have  expressed  a  desire  to  forward  a  good  cause 
by  circulating  the  books.  The  book  will  retail  for  one 
dollar  per  copy,  and  remittances  and  orders  may  be  sent 
to  Bishop  WilHam  M.  Bell,  President,  227  West  Fifty- 
first  Street,  Los  Angeles,  California. 


TABLE  OF  CONTENTS 


Chapter  I.  The  Social  Urgency.  Bishop  William  M.  Bell, 
D.D.,  LL.D.,  Bishop  Pacific  District,  Church 
of   the   United    Brethren    in    Christ 13 

Chapter  II.  The  Minimum  Social  Program  of  a  Militant 
Christianity.  Hon.  J.  Stitt  Wilson,  Ex-Mayor 
of    Berkeley,     California 22 

Chapter  III.  Woman  and  Social  Progress.  Prof,  E.  A. 
Wicher,  D.D.,  Presbyterian  Theological  Semi- 
nary,    San     Anselmo,     California 35 

Chapter  IV.  Education  and  Social  Progress.  Dr.  Thomas 
Walter  Butcher,  President  Kansas  State  Nor- 
mal   School,    Emporia,    Kansas 43 

Chapter  V.  Commercialized  Vice  and  Social  Progress.  Dr. 
Kate  Waller  Barrett,  President  Florence  Crit- 
tenden   Missions    56 

Chapter  VI.  Social  Incorooration  and  Social  Progress.  John 
Henry  Whyte,  President  and  General  Manager 
of  the  Writers'  Plantation  Company,  Ingle- 
side,  Phoenix,  Arizona,  and  Press  Club,  St, 
Louis,    Missouri    64 

Chapter  VII.  The    Family    and    Social    Progress.       Bishop    Wil- 

liam Ford  Nichols,  Bishop  of  the  Protestant 
Episcopal    Church,    San    Francisco,    California..     92 

Chapter  VIII.  The  Movement  for  Peace  and  Social  Progress, 
Dr.  David  Starr  Jordan,  Chancellor  Stanford 
University     102 

Chapter  IX.  The  Pacific  Coast  and  the  Peace  Movement.  Rob- 
ert Cromwell  Root,  Secretary  American  Peace 
Society    for    California 126 

Chapter  X,  War  and   Social   Progress.       Prof.   Charles  Atwood 

Kofoid,     Stanford    University 136 

Chapter  XI.  "Kultur"    as    Against    Civilization.      Prof.    Edward 

Benjamine  Krehbiel,  Stanford  University 150 

Chapter  XII.  The   Fallacies   of  War.     Dr.   William  Trufant   Fos- 

ter,  President   Reed    College,    Portland,    Oregon  159 

Chapter  XIII.  More    War     Fallacies.        Chancellor    David     Starr 

Jordan     168 

Chapter  XIV.  Peace  and  Social  Progress.  Mrs.  May  Wright 
Sevvall,  Representing  International  Council  of 
Women,  and  National  Woman's  Suffrage  Asso- 
ciation        177 

Chapter  XV.  Public  Utilities  and  Social  Progress.  Hon,  Fran- 
cis J.  Heney,  Attorney  and  Government  Prose- 
cutor under   President   Roosevelt 194 

Chapter  XVI.  Our  Cities  and  Social  Progress.  Dr.  Dana  W, 
Bartlett,  Social  Welfare  Worker  and  Commis- 
sioner on  Various  California  City  and  State 
Commissions     218 

Chapter  XVII.  Conflict  and  Social  Progress.  Rev.  Guy  V.  Tal- 
bot, Secretary  Sacramento,  California,  Church 
Federation  and  Field  Secretary  State  Federa- 
tion       222 

11 


Chapter  XVIII.  Our  Public  School  Properties  and  Social  Prog- 
ress.      Dr.    Dana    W.    Bartlett 231 

Chapter  XIX.  Process  and  Climax  in  Social  Progress.  Rev. 
D.  M.  Gandier,  Superintendent  California  Anti- 
Saloon    League 248 

Chapter  XX.  The    Movement    Against    the    Saloon    and    Social 

Progress.  Rev.  Matt.  S.  Hughes,  D.D.,  Pas- 
tor   First    M.    E.    Church,    Pasadena,    California  256 

Chapter  XXI.  The    Woman's    Christian    Temperance    Union    and 

Social  Progress.  Mrs.  Bridelle  C.  H.  Wash- 
burn, Representing  the  California  W.   C.  T.   U.  270 

Chapter  XXII.  Side  Lights  on  the  Movement  Against  the  Saloon. 
Dr.  Guy  Wadsworth,  Superintendent  California 
Dry    Federation     280 

Chapter  XXIII.  The  Triumph  of  the  "Dry"  and  Social  Progress. 
Hon.  A.  J.  Wallace,  Ex.-Lieut.  Gov.  of  Cali- 
fornia    284 

Chapter  XXIV.         Fair    Legislation    and    the    Liquor    Traffic.        Rev. 

D.    M.    Gandier    292 

Chapter  XXV.  The  Testimony  of  Science  as  to  Alcohol  and  So- 
cial   Progress.       Dr.    David   Starr  Jordan 297 

Chapter  XXVI.  Votes  for  Women  and  Social  Progress.  Mrs. 
Gerberling,  Congressional  Union  of  Washing- 
ton, D.  C 306 

Chapter  XXVII.  Taxation  and  Social  Progress.  Hon.  A.  J.  Wal- 
lace       309 

Chapter  XXVIII.  The  Key  to  Social  Progress.  Prof.  Charles  S. 
Gardner,  Southern  Baptist  Seminary,  Louis- 
ville,   Kentucky     323 

Chapter  XXIX.  Democracy  and  Social  Progress.  Dr.  John  R. 
Haynes,  Physician  and  Social  Welfare  Worker, 
Los    Angeles    336 

Chapter  XXX.  The  Revival  of  Our  National  Religion  and  Social 
Progress.  Rev.  J.  S.  McGaw,  D.D.,  Field 
Secretary    National    Reform   Association 351 

Chapter  XXXI.         The  Principles  of  Social   Progress.      Prof.  Charles 

S.    Gardner    361 

Chapter  XXXII.  The  Church  and  the  Challenge  for  Social  Ad- 
vancement. Bishop  Francis  J.  McConnell,  D.D., 
LL-D.,  Bishop  of  the  Methodist  Episcopal 
Church,   Denver,  Colorado    391 


12 


Chapter  I. 
THE  SOCIAL  URGENCY. 

BY  WILLIAM    M.  BELL. 

The  temper  of  the  universal  mind  is  such  at  the  present 
time  that  economic  conditions  are  passing  under  a  new 
and  searching  scrutiny.  This  is  not  to  be  wondered  at, 
but  on  the  contrary  it  appears  to  be  easily  accounted  for 
by  reference  to  any  one  of  a  number  of  causes.  In  a 
single  word  the  constructive  conscience  of  mankind, 
growing  every  day  more  powerful,  accounts  for  this  new 
scrutiny.  The  general  prevalence  of  knowledge  and  reli- 
gion and  the  by-products  of  each  are  making  the  process 
of  scrutiny  vital  and  humane.  This  age  appreciates  and 
understands  the  social  and  life  significance  of  money  as 
no  other  age  has  been  able  to  do,  and  this  is  no  reflection 
on  preceding  generations.  The  appreciation  is  the  result 
of  the  general  advance  in  the  conquests  of  civilization  and 
the  resultant  feeling  that  man's  achievements  in  the  ma- 
terial environment  should  be  compelled  to  minister  with  a 
greater  uniformity  and  equality  to  human  comfort,  happi- 
ness, and  advancement.  That  the  demand  for  social  jus- 
tice should  not  appear  to  have  a  pronounced  urgency  to 
all  individuals  equally  is  inevitable.  Self-complacency  and 
comfort  are  always  apprehensive  of  change.  Social  and 
economic  inequalities  are  felt  most  keenly  by  those  who 
are  the  greatest  sufferers  therefrom.  The  feeling  and 
viewpoint  of  the  sufferer  and  the  already  affluent  are 
sure  to  differ.  The  correct  appraisement  of  the  view- 
point and  feeling  of  each  must  be  made  and  the  voice  of 
each  must  be  heard  dispassionately  and  sympathetically. 

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Addfe$s^iW6ir'M^  Sodid  Progress  Congress 

It  should  be  borne  in  mind  that  the  evolution  toward 
social  justice  and  equality,  while  admittedly  desirable, 
has  always  been  seriously  retarded.  The  retarding  influ- 
ences are  sometimes  deliberately  pernicious  and  preda- 
tory. It  is  this  aspect  of  the  situation  which  justifies  the 
interest  and  activity  of  all  fair-minded  people.  Desirable 
evolutions  are  measurably  retarded  by  certain  limitations 
that  human  ability  cannot  annul.  When  the  influences 
that  retard  are  of  deliberate,  human  origin,  it  becomes 
the  duty  of  government  and  of  individuals  to  accept  the 
challenge  which  the  fact  affords,  and  apply  the  remedy. 
This  task  always  is  urgent  and  at  the  same  time  admit- 
tedly difficult.  Its  difficulty  must  not  deter  us  from  the 
task.  If  the  evolution  becomes  so  manifestly  tardy  as  to 
indicate  apathy  and  inertia,  then  orderly  assault  on  the 
existing  status  becomes  imperative  duty.  Desirable  re- 
form may  not  be  forever  delayed.  Radicalism  sometimes 
is  necessary  in  the  forwarding  of  needed  reforms.  Rad- 
icalism and  conservatism  both  have  their  place  in  the 
evolution  of  society.  They  both  have  their  place  in  the 
individual  character.  The  processes  of  social  decay  or 
of  social  progress  are  of  necessity  slow,  and  the  fact  often 
results  in  stress  and  storm.  It  is  both  a  menace  and  a 
safeguard.  Apparently  the  over-conservative  would  in 
effect  annul  the  law  of  change  but  it  cannot  be  an- 
nulled. It  exists  by  divine  appointment  and  it  must  be 
frequently  invoked,  but  it  must  always  be  done  with  sanity 
and  moderation.  It  requires  deliberate,  efficient,  and  or- 
ganized work  to  correct  the  ultra-conservative.  The  pres- 
ent status  has  a  certain  alluring  and  subtle  fascination, 
while  it  is  also  extremely  persistent.  It  is  always  easier 
to  be  satisfied  with  conditions  as  they  now  obtain  than  it 
is  to  pioneer  in  the  direction  of  improvement,  and  espe- 
cially so  when  the  vested  interests  enter  into  the  issue. 

14 


n 


The  Social  Urgency 

The  defense  of  the  present  status  always  has  the  advan- 
tage." The  present  status  is  frequently  accorded  an  ab- 
normal sanctity  and  a  wisdom  which  it  does  not  possess. 
Beside,  social  progress  has  always  been  and  always  will 
remain  a  costly  process  in  every  sense  of  the  term.  Be- 
cause inequality,  after  it  has  existed  for  a  time,  assumes 
a  peculiar  tenacity,  and  because  social  progress  is  a  chal- 
lenging and  costly  process  many  surrender  to  social  pessi- 
mism. Hopeless  people  can  never  do  the  vital  work  of 
society.  Social  impotence  is  but  another  form  of  social 
hopelessness. 

No  intelligent  person  but  recognizes  the  present  exist- 
ence of  destructive,  abnormal,  and  unnecessary  financial 
inequalities  that  can  be  remedied.  Our  civilization  is 
seriously  approaching  the  problem  of  the  distribution  of 
wealth.  Its  accumulation  has  had  its  difficulties  and  is 
no  mean  achievement.  It  has  involved  the  devotion  of 
brain  and  brawn,  and  always  will  do  so.  Its  undue  and 
abnormal  centralization  has  elements  of  peril  to  the  indi- 
vidual and  to  the  social  order.  The  situation  must  be 
discussed  calmly  and  dispassionately  and  those  who  dis- 
cuss it  and  find  protest  against  it  in  conformity  with  their 
best  judgment  and  ideals  are  not,  therefore,  to  be  branded 
as  erratic  extremists.  Conservatism  is  often  astute,  but  it 
is  sometimes  obtuse  and  lacking  in  alertness.  Every  in- 
stitution and  organization  has  what  may  be  called  a  peril 
of  conservation.  Organizations  and  institutions  may  press 
the  matter  of  self -conservation  to  the  extent  of  self- 
destruction.  "Whom  the  gods  would  destroy  they  first 
make  mad."  On  all  the  big,  mooted  questions  that  are 
being  born  of  the  very  rapidity  with  which  society  is 
evolving,  there  is  need  of  patience,  candor,  open-minded- 
ness,  sympathy,  and  thoroughness.  It  is  evident  that 
social  and  industrial  justice  would  all  but  remove  poverty 

IS 


Addresses  World's  Social  Progress  Congress 

throughout  the  civiHzed  world.  The  contribution  which 
this  justice  would  make  to  the  progress  of  society  has 
not  as  yet  been  fully  appreciated.  Between  the  status  as 
it  is  and  as  it  should  be,  is  a  world  of  achievement  that 
affords  task  and  challenge  for  us  all.  Modern  civiHzation 
is  slowly  moving  toward  a  fine  social  potency.  Undue 
conservatism  will  challenge  every  progressive  movement. 
Admittedly  the  tasks  of  democracy  are  colossal  and  call 
for  unselfishness,  exalted  character,  and  statesmanship. 
A  civilization  that  proposes  to  work  out  its  problems 
through  the  principle  of  democracy  must  maintain  a  high 
percentage  of  efficiency  in  religion,  education,  govern- 
ment, commerce,  and  industry.  An  abnormal  conserva- 
tism registers  itself  by  refusing  to  face  all  of  these  high 
challenges.  It  consents  to  the  floating  derelicts  of  the 
social  order  and  treats  them  as  a  matter  in  due  and  reg- 
ular course.  They  are  accepted  as  well  nigh  a  standard 
commodity  from  which  there  is  no  escape.  Instead  of 
challenging  our  principle  of  democracy,  we  need  to  chal- 
lenge our  inertia.  Instead  of  doubting  that  a  new  gait 
in  social  advancement  is  possible  and  that  it  is  now  due, 
let  us  hear  the  clarion  call  to  "forward  march."  Those 
who  stand  for  social  justice  and  advance  must  show 
themselves  resourceful  and  alert.  Stupid  goodness  is  at 
this  time  especially  unpardonable  and  offensive.  Brilliant 
sinning  must  be  met  by  brilHant  righteousness. 

Specific  offenses  against  the  progress  of  society  must 
be  noted  not  as  though  they  were  normal,  but  on  the  con- 
trary erratic  and  abnormal.  One  calling  attention  to  them 
must  not  be  rated  as  reveling  in  the  abnormal  or  as  under- 
valuing or  overlooking  the  wholesome  and  worthy  in  the 
social  order.  With  all  this  in  mind  let  us  note  that  cer- 
tain representatives  of  big  business  have  been  presuming 
to  dictate  political  policies  as  if  so  to  do  was  an  unques- 

16 


The  Social  Urgency 

tioned  prerogative.  It  should  be  borne  in  mind  that  civili- 
zation has  always  yielded  an  abnormal  control  to  wealth 
as  such.  The  twentieth  century  demand  that  government 
shall  take  the  viewpoint  of  the  social  welfare  is  sane 
and  constructive.  Any  control  when  becoming  con- 
scious of  its  power  is  tempted  to  self-interest.  Finan- 
cial inequality  logically  creates  social  inequality.  Be- 
cause of  all  this  the  rising  tide  of  well-grounded  pro- 
test from  an  increasingly  noble  and  emancipated  humanity 
should  be  duly  and  carefully  appraised.  Such  a  distri- 
bution of  wealth  as  approximates  equity,  is  a  sane  and 
Christian  demand.  Beside,  it  needs  to  be  well  understood 
that  our  captains  of  finance  have  no  right  to  debase  our 
men  in  public  Hfe.  Such  debasing  breeds  suspicion  of 
representative  government,  and  such  suspicion  can  only 
be  deplored.  Our  cities  should  be  the  instruments  of  so- 
cial uplift,  but  they  have  been  far  too  often  exploited  for 
the  benefit  of  favored  capitalists.  Remove  the  fact  and 
we  will  be  happy  to  never  refer  to  it  again,  but  so  long 
as  the  fact  remains,  duty  compels  that  it  be  pointed  out. 
Our  wage  earners  need  better  protection  than  they  are 
now  having,  and  in  many  obvious  ways  it  should  be  af- 
forded without  longer  delay.  Modern  civilization  must 
assume  colossal  burdens  and  programs  for  all  sorts  of 
public  improvements,  and  these  should  be  equitably  dis- 
tributed. The  tax  sheets  should  be  investigated  without 
fear  or  favor.  Let  us  move  from  theoretical  to  actual 
equality  before  the  law.  Let  our  courts  be  extremely 
careful  to  guard  against  judicial  bias  in  favor  of  wealth. 
Public  opinion,  that  mighty  aid  to  efficiency  in  a  free 
government,  must  be  protected  from  subterfuge  and  du- 
plicity. A  press  that  deHberately  misleads  the  public  de- 
serves to  be  characterized  as  venal  and  unworthy  of  its 
high  privilege  under  a  free  and  generous  government. 

17 


Addresses  World's  Social  Progress  Congress 

The  people  are  the  greatest  jury  on  earth,  and  they  must 
not  be  misled.  They  deserve  all  the  facts  and  may  be 
trusted  to  bring  in  a  useful  verdict.  On  some  of  the  out- 
standing evils  of  modern  civilization  the  facts  are  all  in 
and  the  verdict  should  be  forthcoming.  Our  education 
has  been  and  must  be  of  both  mind  and  conscience.  Any- 
v^here  the  lack  of  moral  integrity  is  a  raging  cancer.  Our 
commercialism  must  not  be  allowed  to  give  the  lie  to  our 
conventional  professions  of  human  brotherhood.  That 
which  is  conventional  only  with  us  must  become  spon- 
taneous and  hearty.  We  must  have  genuineness  in  our 
democracy,  Christianity,  and  social  interest.  The  sense 
of  proprietorship  in  wealth  must  give  place  to  a  deep 
sense  of  trusteeship.  All  the  processes  of  our  civiHzation 
must  be  made  to  accept  the  compulsions  of  the  moral  con- 
trol. A  genuine  effort  to  install  social  justice  must  be- 
come the  dominant  attitude  with  us  all.  The  sense  of 
social  solidarity  is  growing  rapidly.  Our  varied  and  total 
control  should  embody  the  highest  known  code  of  moral 
principles.  Civilization  must  face  in  all  lands  this  chal- 
lenging ideal.  It  cannot  be  side-stepped  and  dismissed  as 
impractical  and  visionary.  Nothing  immoral  and  inhu- 
mane has  a  right  to  any  sort  of  legal  sanction.  Legisla- 
tion has  no  authorization  save  as  it  moves  in  the  sanctions 
of  morality.  High  ideals  rather  than  money  must  dom- 
inate the  world.  The  viewpoint  of  the  hardened,  capital- 
istic mind  must  not  be  allowed  to  dominate  our  free  insti- 
tutions. Our  safety  hes  in  the  Christian  mastery  of  our 
economics.  Any  immorality  is  transmuted  directly  into 
economic  loss.  No  private  enterprise  has  the  right  to 
diminish  or  imperil  the  general  welfare.  The  elevation 
of  all  the  people  is  the  supreme  task  of  civilization.  We 
must  stand  by  good  laws  even  when  they  interfere  with 
our  unjustifiable  gains  or  pleasures.     Such  tests  make 

18 


The  Social  Urgency 

imperative  demand  for  high  religious  character  in  our 
citizenship.  Let  us  hail  the  age  of  social  urgency,  for  it 
is  the  age  of  opportunity. 

The  hour  for  social  reconstruction  is  at  hand.  It  can- 
not be  unduly  delayed  without  causing  crisis  and  revolu- 
tion of  one  kind  and  another.  Revolution  has  been  neces- 
sary in  the  past  because  of  blind  selfishness  and  conserva- 
tism. It  may  be  necessary  again,  but  if  the  men  who 
have  the  positions  of  power  and  advantage  in  the  present 
industrial,  financial,  and  general  economic  status  have 
apprehended  the  significance  of  the  rapid  evolution  of 
the  social  conscience  of  the  race  in  recent  years,  it  may  be 
obviated.  The  great  fundamentals  of  an  efficient  civili- 
zation are  rapidly  becoming  internationalized.  There  is  a 
mighty  imperative  in  the  movement,  and  palsied  will 
be  the  arm  that  presumes  to  turn  it  back.  The  principle 
of  democracy,  it  is  now  understood,  is  not  to  be  applied 
to  civil  government  only,  but  to  all  that  is  essentially 
good  for  humankind.  It  applies  to  money  and  property 
and  the  democratizing  of  these  is  demanded  now  as  never 
in  all  the  past.  Money  and  property  are  vitally  related 
to  the  proper  development  of  all  the  institutions  that  are 
fundamental  to  an  advancing  civilization.  The  oldest 
institution  known  to  civilization  is  the  family.  Immedi- 
ately when  the  question  of  family  efficiency  is  taken  up, 
there  comes  the  demand  for  adequate  wage  for  labor, 
self-support,  ownership,  and  general  economic  compe- 
tence. A  large  proportion  of  the  people  in  the  present 
generation  are  wage  workers,  and  all  of  these  people 
should  be  clearly  identified  with  family  life.  Family  Hfe 
is  impossible  to  many  of  our  young  men  to-day  because 
wages  are  too  low  to  justify  marriage,  with  its  natural 
result  in  parenthood.    A  low  wage  is  a  real  deterrent  of 

19 


Addresses  World's  Social  Progress  Congress 

marriage,  for  no  thoughtful  man  is  so  reckless  as  to  wish 
to  involve  himself  in  marital  responsibility  which  at  once 
affects  the  comfort,  happiness,  and  welfare  of  another 
than  himself.  The  wage  question  ought  not  be  settled  on 
the  low  plane  of  demand  and  supply.  The  principle  of 
social  and  family  efficiency  should  determine,  and  this 
viewpoint  will  be  adopted  sooner  or  later  and  become 
dominant.  It  should  come  spontaneously,  but  if  it  does 
not  so  come,  then  legislation  must  enforce  it.  The  family 
or  home  life  of  modern  civilization  is  approaching  a 
real  and  necessary  standardization.  In  that  standardiza- 
tion is  the  demand  for  industry,  skill,  training,  thrift,  and 
high  character  as  the  family  content.  Another  phase  of 
the  standardization  demands  sufficient  income  in  exchange 
for  honest  toil  to  provide  for  self-support  and  ownership 
at  least  sufficient  to  guarantee  reasonable  leisure,  compe- 
tence in  old  age,  and  other  requisites  of  family  efficiency. 
If  the  family  is  not  self-supporting,  society  is  invariably 
called  upon  to  meet  the  deficit  in  the  form  of  charity, 
asylums  of  various  kinds,  court  and  crime  costs,  and 
special  institutions  for  the  defectives.  Why  not  betake 
ourselves  to  a  Christian  and  scientific  effort  for  preven- 
tion instead  of  spasmodic  attempts  at  cure.  Ownership 
for  various  reasons  is  becoming  increasingly  difficult.  It 
ought  not  be  too  difficult,  for  that  means  destruction  to 
many.  The  land  is  almost,  if  not  quite,  beyond  the  reach 
of  multitudes  of  famihes,  and  this  contributes  to  the  so- 
cial urgency.  Heaven  pity  the  children  of  the  tenements. 
We  are  making  the  costly  blunder  of  trying  to  rear  chil- 
dren successfully  and  satisfactorily  in  so-called  cheap 
rental  or  tenement  districts.  Every  child  is  entitled  to 
contact  with  meadows,  fruits,  flowers,  forests,  streams, 
grain  fields,  and  all  that  makes  up  God's  great  out-of- 

20 


The  Social  Urgency 

doors.  There  is  tragedy  in  the  fact  that  millions  die  be- 
cause these  are  denied  them.  Our  flocks  and  herds  must 
have  green  pastures,  but  the  children  may  die  in  the 
crowded  street. 

From  everywhere  and  all  around  comes  the  cry  for  the 
better  here  and  now  world.  God  would  have  it  so,  for 
he  sent  his  beloved  Son  to  exemplify  and  fully  accredit 
the  principles  by  which  the  kingdom  of  human  welfare 
can  be  secured.  We  are  all  taught  to  pray,  "Thy  kingdom 
come,  thy  will  be  done,  as  in  heaven  so  on  the  earth."  Let 
us  hasten  it  in  our  day. 


21 


Chapter  IL 

THE  MINIMUM  SOCIAL  PROGRAM  OF  A 
MILITANT  CHRISTIANITY. 

BY  J.  STITT  WILSON. 

Since  the  three  addresses  to  be  delivered  this  afternoon 
are  almost  in  the  nature  of  a  symposium,  it  will  be  un- 
necessary to  offer  any  lengthy  general  introduction.  1 
may  be  permitted  to  enter  directly  into  the  consideration 
of  the  main  theme. 

WHAT  IS  THE  ESSENCE  OF  CHRISTIANITY? 

Leaving  aside  consideration  of  doctrines  and  dogmas, 
of  rites,  forms  and  ceremonies  of  the  sects  or  schools  of 
Christianity,  let  us  ask  what,  on  its  human  side,  is  the 
supreme  religious  emotion?  What  is  the  hall-mark  of 
the  essential  Christian  spirit?  What  is  the  feeling  and 
disposition  of  the  heart  without  which  all  else  professedly 
Christian  is  nothing?  What  purpose  toward  our  fellow- 
creatures  is  it  that  is  essentially  Christian?  What  is  the 
very  soul  and  pulse  of  this  red  stream  that  pours  out  from 
Calvary  to  all  mankind  ?  What  supreme  urge  in  the  com- 
plex passions  and  activities  of  our  race  bears  the  unmis- 
takable marks  of  the  divine? 

From  Scripture,  from  history,  from,  science,  and  from 
human  character  one  simple,  direct  answer  is  forthcoming. 
The  soul  of  Christianity  is  love  to  humanity.  The  essence 
of  the  Christ-spirit  is  compassionate  concern  for  the  de- 
velopment and  welfare,  the  freedom  and  perfection  of  hu- 
man lives.  At  its  maximum  this  spirit  is  abandoned,  self- 
less love  that  "seeketh  not  her  own,"  that  goes  forth  to 
seek  and  to  save  the  lost,  and  to  set  at  liberty  them  that 

22 


Social  Program  for  a  Militant  Christianity 

are  bruised.  At  its  minimum  this  spirit  is  a  humanitarian 
impulse  that  seeks  for  justice  and  freedom  and  the  rights 
of  man  incarnated  in  social  institutions. 

Remove  the  husks,  the  forms,  the  artificialities,  the  inci- 
dental historical  accretions  from  this  mind  of  Christ,  and 
get  down  to  the  substance  and  reality,  and  we  have  at  the 
least  a  kindly  interest  in  the  well-being  of  our  common 
humanity,  and  at  the  highest  a  passionate  devotion  that 
lays  down  life  even  unto  death  for  fellow-men.  God  is 
love.  ''A  new  commandment  I  give  unto  you,  that  ye  love 
one  another  as  I  have  loved  you."  "By  this  shall  all  men 
know  that  ye  are  my  disciples,  that  ye  love  one  another." 

Let  us  acknowledge  that  this  love  to  humanity  reaches 
out  to  the  passionate  longing  for  the  eternal  and  uttermost 
salvation  of  human  souls.  Then  the  measure  of  the  value 
of  the  soul  is  the  standard  of  the  value  of  a  human  life. 
The  higher  the  value  you  give  to  the  soul  in  terms  of 
eternity,  and  at  the  gate  of  heaven,  the  more  unspeakably 
sacred  becomes  that  human  life  in  time,  on  the  earth,  in 
the  battle  for  bread.  God  is  no  respecter  of  persons  or 
places.  The  scales  of  Deity  are  one  for  Sunday  and  Mon- 
day, at  the  altar  rail,  and  in  the  steel  mill  or  sweatshop. 
The  church  of  Christ  cannot  dare  to  make  human  souls 
so  infinitely  valuable  on  Sunday  in  the  church  and  at  the 
altar,  that  it  beggars  the  zvealth  of  heaven  to  redeem  them, 
and  then  make  them  so  cheap  and  worthless  on  Monday, 
on  the  highways  and  at  the  factory  gates,  as  to  leave  them 
the  pawns  of  an  unjust  social  system  in  its  mad  profit- 
hunger. 

Let  us  take  this  love  of  human  souls  that  constraineth 
us  out  into  the  open,  out  and  away  from  everything  that 
is  ecclesiastical  or  ritualistic  and  formal,  out  and  away 
from  stained  glass,  and  Gothic  architecture,  and  pipe  or- 
gans— out  of  the  letter  that  killeth  into  the  spirit  that 

23 


Addresses  World's  Social  Progress  Congress 

giveth  life — let  us  behold  these  infinitely  valuable  souls 
out  there  as  dock  laborers,  and  railway  workers,  and  fac- 
tory hands,  and  members  of  the  building  and  textile 
trades,  as  wandering  out-of-works,  hunting  like  wild  an- 
imals for  some  morsel  of  existence. 

Can  we  stand  it  to  come  out  into  the  fields  and  by-ways 
where  the  feet  of  the  Master  and  the  feet  of  these,  his 
brethren,  tread  the  actual  ways  of  life?  When  we  have 
come  out  of  our  close,  religious  atmosphere  and  behold 
men,  women,  and  children  in  the  actual  struggle  which 
existence  imposes,  what  does  our  love  mean? 

Just  as  we  have  translated  our  Greek  New  Testament 
into  plain  English  words,  can  we  translate  this  tender  love 
for  these  infinitely  sacred  lives  into  a  plain,  matter-of-fact, 
week-day,  social  program  for  using  land,  and  running 
machinery,  and  utilizing  labor,  and  lending  credit  ?  Have 
we  any  Monday  translation  for  our  Sunday  spirit  and 
gospel?  Have  we  any  factory-and-mill  version  for  our 
prayer-meeting  passion  for  souls?  Have  we  any  social 
and  industrial  organization  that  will  constitute  a  material 
expression,  an  incarnation  of  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount, 
the  Golden  Rule,  and  the  divine  love  for  man  that  radiates 
from  Calvary? 

We  pray,  "Thy  will  be  done  on  earth  as  it  is  in  heaven" 
on  Sunday.  Can  we  form  a  social  system  that  looks  as  if 
we  meant  that  for  all  the  week  days?  On  Sunday  we 
pray,  "Give  us  this  day  our  daily  bread."  Can  we  use 
land,  labor,  and  machinery  in  such  a  manner  from  Mon- 
day to  Saturday  so  as  not  to  defeat  the  very  Almighty  in 
answering  that  prayer?  We  say,  "Lord,  Lord,"  in  our 
places  of  worship.  Can  we  "do  the  things  which  he  said," 
in  our  places  of  business  ? 

Is  there  a  social  program,  a  proposed  scientific  organ- 
ization of  our  economic  life,  to  be  inaugurated  by  the  votes 

24 


Social  Program  for  a  Militant  Christianity 

and  laws  of  the  people,  by  the  processes  of  democracy, 
which  is  the  program  of  the  Christ-spirit,  executing  the 
good  will  toward  sacred  human  lives? 

LOVE  AND  LABOR, 

Keeping  hot  on  the  trail  of  a  love  that  concerns  itself 
with  precious,  human  lives,  our  social  program  must  at 
the  very  least  guarantee  equality  of  opportunity  to  all  to 
use  the  resources  and  equipment  of  civilization,  for  mak- 
ing a  living,  and  conversely  every  form  of  private  monop- 
oly or  private  administration  for  private  profit  which  ex- 
ploits human  life  or  crowds  human  beings  out  of  oppor- 
tunity— must  be  abolished. 

If  the  lives  of  these  our  brethren  are  as  precious  as  the 
light  from  Calvary  reveals  them  to  be,  then  we  must  abso- 
lutely make  it  our  first  twentieth-century  business  to  es- 
tablish economic  justice  in  the  use  of  the  land  and  ma- 
chinery by  which  they  get  their  bread.  This  is  not  a  sec- 
ondary or  subordinate  consideration ;  it  is  primary  and 
fundamental. 

The  man  or  preacher  who  says  he  loves  the  souls  of 
men,  and  does  not  love  their  lives  sufficiently  to  give  his 
voice,  his  influence,  and  his  vote  to  establish  economic 
justice,  is  faithless  to  the  kingdom  of  God,  and  the  toiling 
masses  have  long  since  been  suspicious  of  that  form  of 
infidelity. 

There  can  be  no  love  that  excludes  social  and  economic 
justice.  Economic  justice  in  the  equipment  for  getting 
our  bread  is  the  lowest  common  denominator  into  which 
we  can  all  measure  whatever  Christianity  we  have.  Any 
imaginary  Christianity  that  cannot  be  expressed  on  its 
human  side  in  terms  of  social  and  economic  justice,  is 
vain  or  is  some  delusion  of  superstition.  It  is  not  the 
truth  or  love  of  the  Carpenter  of  Galilee,  who  came  de- 

25 


Addresses  World's  Social  Progress  Congress 

livering  slaves,  preaching  good  news  to  the  poor,  and  set- 
ting at  liberty  them  that  are  bruised. 

Organized  Christianity  must  seek  to  so  revolutionize 
our  commercial  and  economic  life  as  to  guarantee  to  each 
and  to  all  of  the  people  the  material  and  physical  condi- 
tions in  which  we  can  live  free  and  happy  and  emanci- 
pated human  lives  on  all  planes — physical,  mental,  moral, 
and  spiritual. 

The  present  system  of  industry — known  in  economics 
as  capitalism — is  the  very  negation  of  the  whole  Christ- 
spirit  and  program.  In  basis,  in  process,  and  outcome  it 
is  a  denial  of  the  spirit  and  teaching  of  Christ.  Capitalism 
in  its  universal  gamble  with  the  equipment  and  products 
of  civilization,  for  mere  private  profit,  and  its  correspond- 
ing exploitation,  and  actual  enslavement  of  human  beings, 
is  a  modern  anti-Christ.  Destructive  criticism  of  our 
present  system  has  about  done  its  work.  I  need  only  sum 
up  in  a  few  phrases  the  indictment  as  a  background  for 
the  constructive  program. 

CAPITALISM  ANALYZED  AND  IMPEACHED. 

Under  capitalism  the  five  great  factors  in  bread-getting 
are  exploited  for  private  profit;  that  is  to  say,  land,  ma- 
chinery, products,  labor,  and  money   (or  credit). 

1.  Land,  the  mother  of  us  all,  the  source  of  all  wealth, 
the  recipient  of  all  labor,  is  gambled  with,  speculated  with, 
and  monopolized  and  kept  out  of  use  for  the  sake  of  the 
rise  of  values  and  the  unearned  increment,  until  human 
beings  have  nowhere  to  lay  their  heads,  no  place  to  build 
a  home,  no  place  to  expend  their  labor. 

Our  present  system  of  private  monopoly,  private  specu- 
lation, and  private  control  of  land  and  land  values,  is 
nothing  short  of  a  legaHzed  crime.  It  is  immoral,  un- 
scriptural,  unchristian,  inhuman,  anti-social,  and  anarch- 

26 


Social  Program  for  a  Militant  Christianity 

ical — the  mother  of  a  whole  spawn  of  social  miseries  and 
tragedies. 

2.  Machinery,  the  gift  of  human  genius,  the  awful 
titan  that  produces  wealth  as  if  by  miracle,  is  now  priv- 
ately owned  and  run  for  private  profit  by  the  lords  of 
industry.  The  very  men  that  make  and  run  this  ma- 
chinery are  reduced  to  bondage,  dependence,  and  slavery 
as  this  master  product,  industrial  machinery,  passes  from 
the  hand  that  creates  to  the  hand  that  owns.  Modem 
mechanical  equipment  makes  men  slaves.  It  is  intended, 
under  truth  and  justice,  to  make  men  free. 

3.  Labor  applied  to  this  magic  machinery  in  trans- 
forming natural  resources,  produces  a  super-abundance, 
an  almost  limitless  flood  of  products  for  human  satisfac- 
tion. But  this  volume  of  things  and  products  is  seized 
upon  by  our  commercial  masters  and  traded  with  for 
profit,  and  profit  only.  Coal,  iron,  gas,  electric  power, 
water  power,  grain,  cotton,  lumber,  tools,  clothing,  food- 
stufiFs — everything  is  open  to  the  profit-carnival,  and  to 
the  monopolist,  so  that  it  actually  turns  out  that  the  more 
we  can  produce  in  the  shortest  time,  the  sooner  multi- 
tudes of  people  are  thrown  idle  on  the  labor  market,  un- 
able to  buy  the  very  things  their  own  hands  have  created 
in  such  abundance. 

4.  This  private  property  without  limit  in  the  land,  the 
machinery,  and  the  products  of  labor,  and  the  universal 
gamble  in  these,  inevitably  exploits,  robs,  defrauds,  and 
enslaves  the  people — the  vast,  common  multitude — the 
working  classes. 

The  inevitable  outcome  is  that  labor — the  muscle,  skill, 
brain,  and  energy  of  men,  women,  and  children — is  gam- 
bled with.  There  is  little  concern  as  to  whether  the  hu- 
man being  shall  be  guaranteed  a  chance  to  make  his  bread 

27 


Addresses  World's  Social  Progress  Congress 

and  be  secure  in  the  full  product  of  his  labor.  That  is 
the  last  consideration. 

And  thus  these  human  lives,  these  human  souls,  whom 
we  profess  to  love,  in  the  name  of  Christ,  are  sacrificed 
to  the  grossest,  crudest  materialism  on  the  altar  of  profit 
to  the  untold  enrichment  of  the  priviliged  classes. 

5.  When  we  add  to  the  indictment  the  fact  that  the 
power  of  credit,  one  of  the  most  tremendous  forces  in 
the  human  society,  is  also  left  in  private  hands  to  be  used 
at  will  for  private  profit — is  it  any  wonder  that  in  a  civili- 
zation where  nature  and  invention  and  skill  is  at  a  max- 
imum of  marvelous  power  to  yield  wealth  and  abundance, 
the  poverty  of  the  people  should  become  the  curse  of  our 
generation,  while  "wealth  sits  a  monster  gorged  midst 
hungry  populations." 

This  system  is  an  evil  and  corrupt  tree,  and  cannot 
bring  forth  good  fruit.  No  reform,  no  philanthropy,  no 
charity,  no  individualistic,  personal  religion  that  ignores 
social  justice  can  reach  this  hurt  of  the  people.  The  axe 
must  be  laid  to  the  root  of  the  tree. 

As  rapidly  as  intelligence  and  good  will  can  act,  this 
system  must  be  overthrown  and  a  social  system  based 
upon  social  justice,  economic  freedom,  and  simple  human 
brotherhood  must  now  take  its  place.  This  social  revolu- 
tion, now  impending,  will  be  the  supreme  world-drama  of 
the  twentieth  century. 

This  social  revolution  is  the  fulfillment  of  that  prophecy 
that  nations  shall  be  born  in  a  day.  This  social  revolution 
is  the  coming  of  the  full  corn  in  the  ear.  It  is  a  grand 
tip  of  the  beam  of  time  to  the  ''far-oflf  divine  event  toward 
which  the  whole  creation  moves." 

THE    MINIMUM    PROGRAM. 

Against  this  background  of  social  injustice  of  the  pres- 
ent system,  we  present  the  outlines  of  the  minimum  pro- 

28 


Social  Program  for  a  Militant  Christianity 

gram.  By  presenting  the  program  briefly  and  simply,  it 
will  not  be  lost  in  a  multiplicity  of  detail,  and  will  remain 
more  vividly  in  the  mind.  We  shall  follow  the  order  of 
our  criticism  of  capitalism. 

1.  Land.  The  minimum  demand  of  social  justice  on 
the  land  question  is  the  taxation  of  the  full,  unearned  in- 
crement of  land  values,  in  order  to  break  up  land  mo- 
nopoly and  land  speculation. 

Wherever  people  aggregate,  there  are  social  or  com- 
mon values  created  in  the  site  on  which  they  aggregate 
that  would  never  arise  except  for  the  association  of  men 
in  communities.  This  increase  in  site  values  is  not  due 
to  the  skill,  capital,  labor,  or  foresight  of  any  individual. 
These  values  are  an  outgrowth  of  man's  Hfe  as  a  social  or 
communal  being.  His  physical  labors,  his  intellectual 
achievements,  and  his  moral  co-operations  as  a  social  be- 
ing in  the  vicinity  of  any  site  on  the  earth,  create  social 
values  at  that  site,  and  at  a  radius  therefrom,  that  should 
accrue  to  no  individual.  Such  site  values  or  social  values 
are  socially  created. 

Since  the  association  of  men  in  communities  creates 
social  needs,  which  government  must  supply,  and  since 
the  same  association  of  men  creates  values  that  no  indi- 
vidual creates,  therefore,  these  land  values  thus  created 
are  the  legitimate,  scientific,  and  just  source  of  all  reve- 
nues to  meet  all  civic  and  social  needs. 

Such  taxation  of  the  unearned  increment  of  land  values 
would  secure  the  average  man  in  a  home  or  farm  or 
ranch.  It  would  force  into  use  all  available  lands.  Pro- 
duction would  increase  enormously  and  the  inflated  for- 
tunes now  arising  from  the  almost  diabolical  land  dealing 
would  be  impossible. 

Add  to  this  the  national  or  social  ownership  of  arable 
lands  and  socially-used  areas,  just  as  we  own  the  great 

29 


Addresses  World's  Social  Progress  Congress 

national  parks  and  national  forests,  of  such  vast  areas  as 
can  be  cultivated  and  developed  on  a  large  scale,  as  na- 
tional, state,  or  municipal  undertakings,  and  we  have  a 
land  policy  that  removes  this  one  first  gift  of  God  to  man 
from  the  domain  of  mere  private  greed  and  exploitation. 
Here  is  the  first  imperative  plank  of  a  Christian  program 
for  human  freedom. 

2.  Machinery.  Coming  to  the  realm  of  industry,  a 
penny  postage  stamp  may  be  taken  as  the  symbol  of  a 
Christian  social  policy.  Our  postal  system,  including  now 
the  parcel  post,  is  conducted  by  the  people,  for  the  people, 
on  principles  of  public  welfare,  universal  good  will,  and 
democracy.  If  we  add  a  more  democratic  organization  of 
the  employees,  and  of  their  work,  in  spirit  and  poHcy,  this 
is  the  direction  of  a  Christian  system. 

The  people  in  various  countries  now  own  and  collec- 
tively administer  schools,  water  works,  street  railways, 
docks  and  harbors,  railways,  telegraphs,  telephones,  etc. 
Once  entered  upon,  this  policy  is  never  forsaken.  San 
Francisco  buys  a  short  street  railway,  and  so  successful 
does  it  prove  that  the  city  at  once  extends  the  line,  and 
seriously  contemplates  municipal  ownership  of  its  entire 
street  railway  system. 

This  collectivism  extends  the  domain  of  the  wealth  that 
is  common.  It  lessens  and  limits  the  wealth  of  the  plu- 
tocracy, and  it  tends  to  secure  the  necessary  private  indi- 
vidual wealth  while  cutting  the  arteries  of  huge  private 
fortunes  made  out  of  public  utilities.  Such  public  owner- 
ship is  thus  a  defense  against  private  property  for  the 
hand  that  creates  it. 

PRIVATE    PROPERTY. 

Roughly  speaking,  there  are  three  kinds  of  ownership 
of  property.     There  is  the  ownership  of  purely  personal 

30 


Social  Program  for  a  Militant  Christianity 

property,  such  as  home,  furniture,  clothing,  books,  per- 
sonal income,  and  purchases  therefrom  for  personal  and 
family  use — in  short,  all  the  necessities,  comforts,  and 
even  satisfactions  of  life.  This  kind  of  private  ownership 
should  be  defended  and  conserved,  and  indeed  we  should 
aim  to  make  every  individual  and  every  family  secure  in 
the  ownership  of  these  things  and  the  labor  necessary  to 
obtain  them. 

A  second  kind  of  private  property  is  the  natural  sav- 
ings that  normal  prudence  and  thrift  and  foresight  lay 
aside  for  future  use.  Such  private  property,  as  a  reserve 
against  emergencies,  should  be  preserved  to  all.  We 
should  seek  to  increase  it  and  secure  it  against  the  private 
looting  now  proceeding  so  respectably  in  financial  circles. 

But  there  is  a  third  kind  of  private  property  that 
should  become  public  property — that  is,  property  in  the 
most  important  means  of  production,  or  equipment  of 
large  scale  industry.  At  least  the  most  efficiently  organ- 
ized industries  should  become  public  property.  This  is 
the  kind  of  property  that  is  used  to  rob,  exploit,  and  en- 
slave the  people,  and  actually  to  deny  the  workers  any 
considerable  degree  of  the  necessary,  personal,  private 
property  or  private  savings,  while  enriching  beyond  the 
dreams  of  avarice  the  owners  of  these  industries. 

The  collective  ownership  and  control  of  this  kind  of 
property  will  end  the  present  capitalistic  domination  of 
human  life.  A  one-cent  postage  stamp  may  symbolize  the 
idea  and  preach  this  program. 

With  abolition  of  land  monopoly  and  private  control  of 
large  scale  industry  and  the  products  of  labor  for  private 
profit,  and  the  security  of  the  state  for  the  savings  of  the 
people,  human  labor  and  human  life  will  be  emancipated 
from  economic  dependence  and  economic  servitude.  The 
evils,  the  industrial  tragedies,  the  social  hells  of  our  pres- 

31 


Addresses  World's  Social  Progress  Congress 

ent  system  will  be  abolished.  The  next  great  stage  of 
human  freedom — industrial  and  economic  freedom — will 
be  added  to  the  religious  and  political  freedoms  already 
attained. 

The  new  era  will  present  new  strifes,  new  aristocracies, 
new  aims,  new  goals,  but  other  generations  unborn  will 
face  the  problems  arising  therein.  Ours  is  the  glorious 
task  of  completing  the  physical  emancipation  of  the  race, 
and  launching  our  children  and  children's  children  upon 
an  age  of  social  and  economic  brotherhood  in  which  we 
believe  the  fair  flowers  of  intellectual  and  spiritual  beauty 
will  bloom  as  never  before  in  this  garden  of  the  Lord. 

FINAL  APPEAL  FOR  ACTION. 

In  presenting  this  minimum  social  program  for  a  mili- 
tant Christianity,  it  is  not  necessary  to  abate  our  zeal  for 
the  salvation  of  souls.  Any  theology  that  proceeds  on  the 
basis  that  a  human  being  is  more  sacred  than  the  profit 
that  is  made  out  of  his  blood  and  labor,  will  do ;  and  any 
honest  zeal  for  souls  may  afford  enough  simple  regard  for 
human  beings  to  rescue  them  from  the  devouring  maw  of 
the  mammon  gods  of  capitalism. 

I  therefore  make  this  appeal :  That  in  the  name  of  Him 
who  died  for  men,  we  incorporate  into  the  radius  of  Chris- 
tian passion,  purpose  and  program,  an  intelligent,  aggres- 
sive, and  militant  attack  on  the  present  social  order,  not 
upon  its  evil  fruits  with  petty  reforms,  but  on  its  basic 
roots  and  principles,  with  constructive  political  and  social 
programs,  for  its  abolition. 

One  whole  quarter  of  a  century  has  now  passed  in 
which  the  church  should  have  been  in  the  van,  in  the  so- 
cial movement.  The  church  should  have  been  the  cham- 
pion and  deliverer  of  the  poor,  and  the  toilers  in  the  past 
twenty-five  years,  in  which  private  individuals  and  cor- 

32 


Social  Program  for  a  Militant  Christianity 

porations  have  systematically  and  under  the  segis  of  law 
robbed  and  defrauded  and  degraded  the  masses.  There 
has  been  no  eye  to  pity,  no  arm  to  save. 

Now,  therefore,  as  the  profit-hunger  of  the  plutocracy 
becomes  more  insatiable,  and  the  iron  heel  of  the  priv- 
ileged classes  becomes  more  ruthless ;  now,  as  the  masses 
are  beginning  to  awake  from  political  deception  and  moral 
stupor;  now,  as  the  simple  program  of  social  ownership 
of  wealth-producing  equipment  begins  to  be  seen  as  the 
new  principle  of  a  world's  freedom,  it  is  the  duty  of  the 
preachers  of  the  gospel  of  the  lowly  Carpenter  to  re- 
nounce their  allegiance  and  moral  support  of  the  capitalist 
system,  as  men  once  before  renounced  their  support  to  the 
system  of  chattel  slavery. 

Even  this  late,  as  the  battle  grows  fierce,  between  man 
and  mammon,  the  church  should  come  up  to  the  help  of 
the  Lord  against  the  mighty,  unjust  Goliaths  of  capital- 
ism, the  anarchs  of  plutocracy. 

We  should  repent  of  our  past  spiritual  neglect  that  has 
allowed  the  monstrous  social  injustice  to  grow  to  such 
awful  proportions.  We  should  lay  down  our  lives  for  the 
sheep  and  deliver  the  people  from  the  economic  injustice 
that  devours  them. 

Think  of  the  number  of  the  preachers  of  the  gospel,  of 
their  ramifying  influence  in  all  the  cities  and  villages,  and 
into  the  homes  of  the  people  !  Think  of  the  immense  force 
of  talent  and  ability  of  the  ministry !  Think  of  the  tre- 
mendous physical  and  material  equipment,  which  the  peo- 
ple have  paid  for  out  of  their  earnings,  which  are  in  pos- 
session of  the  church,  in  the  shape  of  lands,  and  church 
buildings,  and  schools! 

Just  ponder  for  a  moment,  what  a  world  upheaval 
would  result  if  the  power  of  the  pulpit  and  the  church 
was  ranged  on  the  side  of  overthrowing  this  unchristian 

33 


Addresses  World's  Social  Progress  Congress 

system  of  capitalism,  and  of  establishing  economic  justice. 

Think  of  the  new  thrill  of  hope  that  would  stir  the 
hearts  of  the  masses  if  the  tremendous  moral  and  spiritual 
machinery  of  the  church  were  a  menace  to  the  rule  and 
ruin  of  the  profit-mongers  !  Think  of  the  tremendous  reli- 
gious revival  of  genuine  Christianity  that  would  result 
from  such  a  stand. 

The  church  wonders  what  is  the  matter;  why  she  is 
losing  her  hold  on  the  masses ;  why  she  is  so  powerless 
to  stem  the  tide  of  materialism  and  mammonism.  Here 
is  your  secret.  Let  the  church  show  a  soHd  front  to  the 
fundamental  injustices  of  the  present  social  order;  let  the 
church  stand  forth  as  the  champion  of  the  poor  against 
economic  oppression ;  let  the  church  preach  the  teachings 
of  Jesus,  and  point  out  their  social  application  on  the  field 
of  labor  and  industry,  and  the  greatest  moral  and  spirit- 
ual awakening  the  world  has  ever  known  will  break  forth. 
But  let  the  church  continue  to  give  any  kind  of  moral 
backing  to  the  present  system  and  she  will  become  a 
hissing  and  a  by-word  among  men,  and  will  be  found  in 
the  end  apostate  to  the  Christ. 

All  this  effort  and  program  for  economic  justice  should 
not  be  a  side  issue,  an  incident,  something  to  turn  the 
church  away  from  the  mind  of  Girist,  but  the  most  nat- 
ural, normal,  sane,  and  simple  outpouring  of  the  spirit  of 
Him  who  was  moved  with  compassion  on  the  multitudes, 
and  whom  the  ruhng  class  of  his  day  put  to  death  as  an 
interrupter  of  their  ruthless  disregard  of  human  lives. 

Take  the  substance  and  spirit  and  general  trend  of  this 
minimum  social  program,  and  I  believe  you  have  the  next 
grand  wave  conquest  of  the  Christ-spirit  in  human  history. 
"Stand,  thou,  where  all  the  brave  of  ages  stood, 
Help  mold  the  brotherhood." 


34 


Chapter  III. 
WOMAN  AND  SOCIAL  PROGRESS. 

BY  EDWARD  ARTHUR  WICHER. 

One  of  the  most  conspicuous  features  of  the  social  life 
of  our  time  is  the  movement  among  women  in  behalf  of 
women.  It  is  at  once  the  result  of  a  profound  social 
movement  in  the  recent  past,  and  the  promise  of  a  more 
wide-reaching  movement  in  the  immediate  future.  It  is 
probably  the  most  significant  of  all  the  social  signs  of 
our  times.  From  the  side  of  industry,  it  is  the  assertion 
of  the  desire  of  women  for  a  more  independent  economic 
status.  From  the  point  of  view  of  the  interest  of  the  state, 
it  is  the  assertion  that  democracy  is  not  complete  until 
women  have  a  voice  in  the  laws  by  which  both  men  and 
women  are  to  be  governed.  It  is  indeed  also  an  assertion 
that  women  cannot  be  fully  represented  by  men,  however 
intelligent  and  sympathetic  these  men  may  be ;  that  there 
are  some  things  important  to  the  well-being  of  the  race, 
that  no  man  ever  sees  or  ever  can  see;  that  the  state 
needs  the  work  of  women  for  the  solving  of  some  of  its 
most  important  problems,  such  as  the  final  abolition  of 
war,  and  the  suppression  of  the  liquor  traffic  and  its  at- 
tendant evils. 

The  very  fact  that  such  a  movement  exists  is  evidence 
that  the  emancipation  of  women  is  practically  already  ef- 
fected. They  are  now  able  to  cause  their  voice  to  be 
heard  in  every  legislative  hall  and  committee  room  of 
the  nation.  Every  poHtical  leader  is  careful  of  the  influ- 
ence of  the  women's  clubs. 

Now,  all  the  aims  of  the  feminist  movement  may  be 
good  and  sound.    It  is  not  within  the  scope  of  the  present 

35 


Addresses  World's  Social  Progress  Congress 

address  to  discuss  directly  any  of  these  matters.  They 
are  merely  stated  in  order  to  show  the  importance  of  the 
subject.  But  for  Christian  men  and  women,  eager  to 
realize  the  will  of  God  in  a  Christian  state,  it  is  evident 
that  there  can  be  no  solution  of  the  problem  of  the  place 
of  woman  without  a  reference  to  the  teaching  and  prac- 
tice of  the  New  Testament.  And  in  anything  so  funda- 
mental to  the  right  of  humanity  and  the  truth  of  religion 
as  the  proper  conception  of  the  duty  and  happiness  of 
woman,  we  shall  not  interrogate  our  sacred  Scriptures 
in  vain.  We  shall  find,  if  not  specific  directions  for  the 
settlement  of  each  separate  problem,  at  least  such  gen- 
eral principles  as  shall  lay  down  the  lines  of  a  harmon- 
ious social  structure,  and  help  us  to  determine  the  appro- 
priate answer  in  a  multitude  of  details. 

/.    The  Status  of  Woman  in  the  Ancient  World. 

In  antiquity  the  Hebrews,  and  in  a  lesser  degree  the 
Teutons  and  Saxons,  had  a  pre-eminence  in  their  treat- 
ment of  woman.  But  in  general  among  the  ancient  na- 
tions, both  Oriental  and  Occidental,  the  condition  of  wo- 
mankind, both  in  law  and  custom,  seems  to  have  been 
one  of  abject  degradation.  Her  station  was  always  much 
lower  than  that  of  man;  she  was  looked  upon  either  as 
his  slave,  or  as  the  manager  of  his  household  arrange- 
ments. In  particular  it  does  not  seem  to  have  occurred  to 
men  before  the  Christian  era  that -a  woman  could  be  capa- 
ble of  the  holiest  and  noblest  emotions,  or  that  she  could 
be  inspired  to  truly  great  deeds  and  sacrifices. 

In  every  early  state  the  parents,  according  to  their  own 
pleasure,  disposed  of  the  hands  and  hearts  of  their  daugh- 
ters, who  were  married  to  men  who  had  never  wooed 
them,  or  even  consulted  them  about  the  matter.  Love  was 
not  the  motive  for  entering  into  the  relation  of  husband 
and  wife,  but  a  man  purchased  with  money  a  woman  for 

36 


Woman  and  Social  Progress 

a  wife.  The  consequence  was  that  she  was  brought  into 
entire  subjection  to  her  husband.  In  general,  the  law- 
givers of  the  ancient  world  did  but  little  to  mitigate  the 
condition  of  women.  In  Babylonia,  where  the  status  of 
woman  was  freer  and  higher  than  in  any  previous  state, 
this  statement  still  holds  true.  The  blood  rights  of  the 
head  man  of  the  house  over  all  the  women  of  the  house 
are  presupposed.  The  legal  enactments  were  intended  to 
make  secure  the  position  of  the  husband,  in  all  his  custo- 
mary rights,  over  against  the  blood  rights  of  the  male 
kindred  of  his  wife.  Among  all  Oriental  nations,  polyg- 
amy was  an  established  institution. 

In  Egypt,  the  perfection  of  the  development  of  art  coin- 
cided with  the  degradation  of  Egyptian  morals.  The 
women  of  Egypt  were  constantly  watched  in  order  to  pre- 
vent them  from  being  immoral,  and  according  to  all  Egyp- 
tian tradition,  they  were  grossly  immoral.  They  were  en- 
tirely without  education,  and  were  taught  nothing  except 
to  make  themselves  seductive  to  their  husbands.  The  low 
view  held  by  men  of  women  always  reacts  upon  the 
men  themselves ;  and  in  such  a  society  the  high  chiv- 
alry of  noble  manhood  and  the  tender  constancy  of  pure 
womanhood  are  alike  impossible. 

Among  the  Greeks,  even  in  Homeric  times,  dependence 
upon  man  was  the  abiding  lot  of  woman.  She  was  first 
in  subjection  to  her  father,  who  had  absolute  power  over 
her,  and  after  she  was  married,  she  passed  under  the  law 
of  her  husband,  whose  power  was  also  absolute.  And 
yet  in  the  heroic  age  of  Greece  a  large  measure  of  per- 
sonal freedom  of  movement  was  allowed  to  the  women  of 
the  household,  which  was  afterwards  denied  them.  Thus 
we  find  such  noble  women  as  Alcestia,  Andromache,  and 
Penelope,  in  whom  the  ancient  dignity  of  the  Indo- 
Germanic  race  come  to  its  finest  expression  before  the 

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Addresses  World's  Social  Progress  Congress 

advent  of  Christianity.  And  yet  even  these  were  not 
free.  Penelope  was  a  prisoner  in  her  own  house ;  and 
every  widow  whose  husband  had  been  slain  in  battle, 
became  the  prize  of  the  victor.  Those  highest  in  the  so- 
ciety of  the  Homeric  age  were  not  exempt,  as  Hector 
laments  when  taking  leave  of  his  wife,  Andromache. 

But  in  the  period  of  the  florescence  of  Attic  art  and 
Hellenic  power,  there  had  been  a  sad  degradation  of  fam- 
ily life  from  the  simplicity  and  confidence  of  the  Homeric 
age.  Perhaps  the  Greece  of  Pericles  was  too  close  to  the 
shores  of  Asia.  Or  can  it  be  that  the  Persians,  whom  the 
Greeks  had  defeated  at  Marathon,  had  in  their  turn  over- 
come the  earlier  social  ideas  of  their  conquerors?  If  so, 
Greece  soon  paid  the  penalty.  For  the  brief,  glorious  age 
of  Pericles,  which  had  risen  upon  the  joy  and  inspiration 
of  her  resistance  to  the  Asiatic  tyrant,  passed  away  be- 
cause she  had  succumbed  to  the  vices  of  an  Asiatic  harem. 
In  the  historic  age  of  Greece,  the  condition  of  women  was 
not  very  different  from  what  it  had  been  in  the  kingdom 
of  Babylon  and  Nineveh.  The  one  duty  required  of  wives 
was  that  they  be  the  mothers  of  legitimate  children ; 
while  the  system  of  keeping  hetserse  supplied  the  lack  of 
female  society  at  the  pubHc  feasts  of  the  men.  Under 
such  conditions,  one  certainly  could  not  speak  of  marri- 
age as  a  holy  institution,  based  on  love  and  fidelity. 

One  great  source  of  degradation  to  womankind  among 
ancient  peoples  was  the  sensuality  of  religion  itself.  Mul- 
titudes of  women  were  prostituted  in  the  honor  of  the 
deity.  The  places  of  worship  were  often  the  scenes  of 
unbridled  lust.  Thebes  in  Egypt,  Patara  in  Asia  Minor, 
the  groves  of  Daphne  near  Antioch,  the  rock-crowned  cit- 
adel of  Corinth,  are  a  few  of  the  sacred  places  made  fa- 
mous by  their  licentiousness.  And  the  price  of  shame 
flowed  into  the  treasuries  of  the  temple. 

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Woman  and  Social  Progress 

Another  source  of  wrong  was  deeply  rooted  in  the  fact 
that  the  women  of  all  classes  who  could  afford  the  custom, 
were  deprived  of  almost  all  freedom  of  action.  They  were 
shut  in  by  walls  and  regulations. 

Among  the  Roman  people,  the  treatment  of  women, 
especially  in  the  early  period  of  the  republic,  before  the 
Romans  passed  under  the  influence  of  the  Greeks  and  the 
eastern  nations,  was  finer  and  higher  than  among  other 
peoples.  But  here,  too,  in  the  eyes  of  the  law,  she  was 
under  a  perpetual  tutelage.  When  she  passed  from  under 
the  authority  of  her  father,  it  was  only  to  go  under  that  of 
her  husband.  Or,  in  the  case  of  the  death  of  her  father 
while  she  was  still  unmarried,  under  the  authority  of  her 
nearest  male  relative.  In  India,  the  ancient  system  still 
survives,  the  system  of  the  primitive  Indo-Germanic  tribe ; 
and  even  the  Hindu  widow  frequently  becomes  the  ward 
of  her  son. 

But  one  advantage  the  woman  of  classical  antiquity 
had  over  the  woman  of  the  Orient.  She  was  not  required 
to  share  her  place  of  honor  with  another  wife.  Monog- 
amy had  the  sanction  of  law  and  custom  both  in  Greece 
and  Rome.  But  in  both  Greece  and  Rome,  marriage  was 
an  institution  framed  in  the  interest  of  the  state. 

//.    Stotus  of  Woman  Among  the  Hebrew  People. 

All  the  social  relations  of  the  Hebrews  were  permeated 
with  the  spirit  of  their  religion.  Purity  of  the  inner 
life,  deliverance  from  the  slavery  of  the  senses,  the  con- 
secration and  sacrifice  of  the  whole  being  unto  God — 
these  were  the  high  aims  which  the  Torah  set  before  the 
confessors  of  Jehovah.  Such  a  rehgion  could  not  fail  to 
find  within  its  teaching  some  place  for  womankind. 

Upon  the  women  of  Israel  there  was  not  laid  any  such 
slavish  burden  as  upon  the  women  of  Assyria,  Babylonia, 

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Addresses  World's  Social  Progress  Congress 

Phoenicia,  or  any  related  people.  She  was  by  no  means  a 
creature  of  will-less  subjection. 

As  we  consider  the  narrative  of  the  creation  of  woman, 
contained  in  Genesis  2 :  20-22,  we  see  already  in  this  story 
the  features  of  a  higher  ideal  of  womankind.  Here  the 
Lord  God  said,  "I  will  make  an  helpmeet  for  him,"  that  is 
to  correspond  to  him.  Among  all  God's  works  of  cre- 
ation, woman  is  the  only  one  who,  both  in  bodily  and 
spiritual  powers,  answers  wholly  unto  man.  She  corres- 
ponds to  him,  she  reciprocates  his  entire  higher  life,  she 
is  his  other  self.  Therefore  it  follows  of  necessity  that 
the  place  of  woman,  in  reference  to  man,  is  not  one  of 
slavish  inferiority,  but  one  of  entire  equality  of  personaHty 
with  him.  Her  existence,  her  worth,  her  thought,  are 
co-ordinate  with  his,  and  ends  of  equal  importance. 

On  the  other  side,  the  Alosaic  narrative  describes  the 
woman  as  the  helpmeet  of  the  man.  The  sphere  of  her 
calling  does  not  lie  outside  of  that  of  the  man,  also  not 
above  or  below  that  of  the  man.  Both  are  linked  to- 
gether in  the  innennost  relations.  The  wife  is  called  upon 
to  share,  with  fidelity  and  intelligence,  the  burden  of  care 
of  her  husband ;  she  must  take  her  place  by  his  side  as  the 
gentle  and  loving  guide  of  his  upward  way.  From  this 
word  "helpmeet,"  there  streams  a  ray  of  light  down  the 
long  page  of  Israel's  history. 

But  unhappily  in  New  Testament  times,  in  Palestine, 
we  find  the  same  disintegrating  influences  at  work  upon 
the  life  of  the  home  as  we  find  in  the  corrupt  centers  of 
population  of  Greece  and  Rome.  The  laxity  of  divorce 
was  quite  as  striking  as  among  the  Gentiles. 

///.  The  Change  Which  Jesus  is  Making  in  the  World's 
Conception  of  Woman. 

It  is  true  that  Jesus  did  not  attack  directly  those  social 
customs  which  had  pressed  the  publican  and  sinner  into 

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Woman  and  Social  Progress 

lives  of  infamy  and  shame.  That  he  did  not  do  so  was  in 
harmony  with  the  whole  plan  of  his  ministry.  Not  that 
he  was  indifferent  to  these,  or  any,  social  wrongs ;  but 
he  took  the  higher  way  in  dealing  with  them.  He  im- 
parted eternal  principles  of  justice  and  truth  which  would 
work  from  within  outwards,  and  rectify  the  specific  evils 
of  the  world.  The  Friend  of  Mary  Magdalene  gave  to 
the  world  a  gospel  of  infinite  tenderness  and  purity,  that 
would  work  and  move  until  all  wrong  should  be  redressed 
and  all  iniquity  purged  away  in  the  advent  of  the  king- 
dom of  God. 

Many  of  the  profoundest  self-revelations  that  Jesus  had 
to  give  were  made  to  women,  sometimes  even  to  women 
who  had  sinned. 

As  we  study  the  narratives  of  Christ's  dealing  with 
women  there  emerge  the  greater  principles  of  his  king- 
dom. We  should  thoughtfully  ponder  his  relations  with 
his  mother,  Mary,  with  the  household  of  Martha  and 
Mar>%  with  the  Samaritan  woman  at  the  well,  with  the 
sinful  women  who  gathered  around  him  for  cleansing 
and  instruction. 

Let  us  group  our  thoughts  for  a  moment  around  one 
typical  incident  in  the  life  of  our  Lord.  When  he  spoke 
to  the  Samaritan  woman  at  the  well,  she  asked  him,  **How 
is  it  that  thou,  being  a  Jew,  askest  drink  of  me  who  am 
a  woman  of  Samaria  ?"  In  this  narrative  there  were  three 
amazing  situations :  He  was  a  Jew,  and  he  talked  with  a 
Samaritan.  He  was  a  man  and  he  talked  with  a  woman. 
He  was  a  religious  teacher  and  he  talked  with  a  sinful 
woman.  His  conduct  was  revolutionary.  No  self-respect- 
ing Jew  would  have  any  dealings  with  a  Samaritan.  No 
man  would  think  of  entering  into  a  serious  discussion  with 
a  woman. 

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Addresses  World's  Social  Progress  Congress 

Christ  abolished  the  distinction  between  man  and 
woman  as  responsible  human  beings  in  the  sight  of  God 
and  of  his  church.  So  far  as  concerns  the  Jewish  reli- 
gion of  the  synagogue  in  New  Testament  times,  woman 
had  no  place  in  the  synagogue,  just  as  she  has  no  place 
in  the  mosque  to-day.  It  required  ten  adult  males  to 
organize  a  synagogue,  and  women  and  children  did  not 
count.  It  remained  for  Jesus  to  receive  women  into  the 
holiest,  most  intimate  relations  of  religion.  Still  in  the 
Jews'  Morning  Prayer,  the  congregation  stand  and  thank 
God,  in  three  successive  benedictions,  "That  thou  hast  not 
caused  me  to  be  born  a  Gentile ;  that  thou  hast  not  caused 
me  to  be  born  a  slave ;  that  thou  hast  not  caused  me  to  be 
born  a  woman."  Over  against  this  we  may  set  the  words 
of  St.  Paul,  'There  can  be  neither  Jew  nor  Greek,  there 
can  be  neither  bond  nor  free,  there  can  be  no  male  and 
female ;  for  ye  are  all  one  man  in  Christ  Jesus." 


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Chapter   IV. 
EDUCATION  AND  SOCIAL  PROGRESS. 

BY    THOMAS    W.    BUTCHER. 

The  present  educational  unrest  in  America  is  due  in 
large  measure  to  an  economic  change  through  which  we 
are  passing  as  a  result  of  the  disappearance  forever  of 
our  western  lands.  An  increasing  population  must  have 
an  outlet ;  without  it  the  weak  perish,  only  the  strong  sur- 
vive. For  centuries  England  has  used  her  colonies  for 
this  purpose ;  Holland  has  used  the  East  Indies  and  has 
drained  her  own  lakes  as  an  outlet  for  her  surplus  popula- 
tion; Germany  has  used  the  slogan,  ''Made  in  Germany," 
to  open  opportunities  for  her  congested  population. 

Like  any  other  stream,  the  stream  of  humanity  flows  in 
the  direction  of  least  resistance.  For  our  own  people,  we 
have  always  had  unoccupied  lands.  When  a  community 
became  crowded,  the  young  men  went  West  and  estab- 
lished homes  on  our  public  lands.  If  our  western  lands 
could  have  lasted  another  hundred  years,  the  economic 
change  through  which  we  are  now  passing  would  not  have 
come  until  the  next  century.  Agriculture,  as  conducted 
on  new  land,  required  no  technical  training;  the  schools 
were  free  to  offer  such  instruction  as  they  would,  with 
no  one  to  question  their  work,  for  untrained  labor  could 
always  go  out  West.  With  our  western  lands  gone  and  the 
pick  and  shovel  in  the  hands  of  the  Greek,  the  Italian, 
and  the  Mexican,  untrained  American  labor  finds  no  mar- 
ket, and  condemnation  falls  upon  the  schools.  A  system 
of  education,  rarely  questioned  for  a  hundred  years,  is 

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Addresses  World's  Social  Progress  Congress 

assailed  by  newspaper,  magazine,  and  public  speaker  be- 
cause it  fails  to  do  what  it  has  never  done,  provide  its 
product  with  the  means  of  earning  a  living.  Unconsci- 
ously the  public  is  demanding  that  the  schools  create  a 
new  "out  West."  This  will  be  done  through  the  conver- 
sion of  the  products  of  the  earth  into  new  forms  of  eco- 
nomic goods ;  there  is  no  escape  from  it,  we  are  to  become 
a  manufacturing  people  and  the  cry  for  a  training  of  the 
hand  will  not  cease.  Here  we  find  an  explanation  for  the 
outcry  against  the  school  curriculum  as  the  men  and 
women  of  this  audience  knew  it,  and  here  we  find  the  ba- 
sis for  the  whole  manual  movement  in  America. 

Most  revolts  go  too  far;  they  become  destructive  of 
good  as  well  as  of  evil.  This  one  threatens  to  leave  little 
in  the  school  curriculum  that  does  not  give  training  which 
can  be  sold  for  dollars  and  cents.  Communities  and 
States  invest  money  in  education  for  protection  and  for 
profit;  protection  because  ignorance  and  lawlessness  are 
almost  synonymous  terms,  profit  because  through  the  de- 
velopment of  its  citizens  the  State  increases  its  own 
strength  and  resources.  If  only  protection  were  sought, 
the  State  might  safely  require  nothing  of  the  schools  be- 
yond a  solution  of  the  bread-and-butter  problem,  for  it  is 
the  contented  citizen  who  is  the  safe  citizen,  and  the  man 
who  can  support  himself  and  those  dependent  upon  him 
is  usually  a  contented  citizen. 

Like  individuals,  the  State  must  have  more  than  a  safe 
investment;  it  must  have  an  investment  that  returns  a 
profit — a  positive  profit — one  that  gives  back  to  the  State 
something  more  than  a  contented  citizenship,  important 
as  such  a  citizenship  is.  We  must  never  forget  that  one 
of  the  large  functions  of  the  public  school  is  to  discover 
to  the  individual  and  to  the  State,  talent  that  might  other- 
wise  have   remained   undiscovered.     The    Standard   Oil 

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Hducation  and  Social  Progress 

Company  has  prospectors  out  at  all  times  looking  for  new 
fields,  the  baseball  manager  has  his  scouts  out  every  sea- 
son looking  for  new  men.  The  public  school  should  al- 
ways be  prospecting  and  scouting  for  the  State.  The 
mental  and  spiritual  gifts  of  every  mind  should  be  dis- 
covered. Every  talent  of  every  citizen  in  the  State  in- 
creases its  wealth.  When  a  Babcock  gives,  without  pat- 
ent, a  milk  tester  to  the  dairymen  of  his  State,  he  adds  so 
much  to  the  wealth  of  his  State ;  when  a  college  professor 
discovers  that  a  current  of  electricity  will  thaw  a  frozen, 
underground  pipe,  he  makes  a  contribution  to  the  wealth 
of  his  State ;  equally  true  it  is  that  when  a  teacher  in  the 
public  schools  discovers  in  a  pupil  a  talent  for  literature 
or  music  or  art,  she  adds  to  the  wealth  of  her  State. 
Wealth  does  not  consist  of  things  alone.  The  paintings 
of  an  Abbey,  the  poems  of  a  Field,  the  soul  of  a  John 
Brown — these  are  wealth  without  which  the  nation  would 
be  poorer  than  if  she  lost  the  contributions  of  a  Burbank 
or  an  Edison. 

We  hear  a  good  deal  these  days  about  the  practical  in 
education.  Republics  must  have  leaders  and  these  lead- 
ers must  come  from  the  ranks  of  the  common  people; 
there  is  no  other  course.  The  American  school  can  oflTer 
no  more  practical  course  than  one  that  has  for  its  pur- 
pose the  discovery  and  development  of  leadership.  I  have 
somewhere  read  that  England's  investment  in  the  Suez 
Canal  pays  twenty  per  cent.  If  Eaton  and  Oxford  had 
cost  a  thousand  times  what  they  did  cost,  and  Gladstone 
had  been  their  only  product,  the  investment  in  those 
schools  would  have  paid  better  than  the  investment  in  the 
Suez  Canal.  The  schools  must  help  to  solve  the  bread- 
and-butter  problem,  but  they  must  never  lose  sight  of  the 
fact  that  a  love  of  the  beautiful,  and  courage,  and  unself- 
ishness, and  leadership,  and  kindness  of  heart,  and  human 

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Addresses  World's  Social  Progress  Congress 

character  are  the  highest  forms  of  wealth.  Why  not  all 
of  these  in  some  degree  for  the  laborer  and  the  mechanic? 
In  the  top  gallery  of  the  Royal  Opera  House,  in  BerHn, 
I  have  seen  the  German  laborer,  leaning  out  from  hii 
badly-located  seat  or  standing,  music  in  hand,  following 
the  score  during  a  production  of  ''Siegfried,"  or  "Tann- 
hauser,"  or  ''Rhinegold."  I  have  seen  him  with  his  fam- 
ily, as  he  wandered  through  the  art  galleries  of  the  city, 
feasting  his  eyes  upon  the  treasures  stored  there.  Is  he 
not  a  better  and  therefore  a  safer  man  because  in  the 
public  school  he  learned  to  love  good  music  and  good  art, 
instead  of  the  ragtime  of  a  hurdy-gurdy  and  the  gaudy 
chromo  of  some  advertising  concern?  What  matters  it  if 
this  man  does  work  in  a  ditch?  Does  he  not  at  times 
enter  realms  which  the  mere  physical  can  never  enter, 
and,  by  reason  of  that  fact  does  he  not  know  better  the 
content  of  the  word  "manhood,"  and  the  word  "Father- 
land"? His  feet  are  in  the  ditch,  but  his  spirit  is  not 
there,  and  if  he  lived  in  America,  his  spirit  would  some 
day  lift  his  feet  out  of  that  ditch.  A  man's  occupation 
counts  for  little  in  a  republic,  so  long  as  his  occupation  be 
an  honorable  one.  We  do  not  classify  men  according  to 
their  occupations.  Manhood  is  the  basis  of  our  classi- 
fication, and  the  pubHc  schools  should  see  to  it  that  the 
man  who  works  in  the  mine  or  who  digs  in  the  ditch  shall 
catch  a  tip-toe  glimpse  of  things  which  lie  beyond  the 
borders  of  his  physical  needs. 

When  you  ask  the  average  man  what  change  he  would 
make  in  the  school  curriculum,  he  tells  you  he  would  like 
to  go  back  to  the  old-time  school  which  taught  only  the 
common  branches  and  gave  a  boy  a  secure  foundation 
upon  which  to  build.  This  average  man  has  forgotten 
how  poorly  he  spelled  when  he  came  out  of  school,  and 
how  little,  outside  of  the  text-book,  he  knew  about  arith- 

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Education  and  Social  Progress 

metic.  Lists  of  questions  in  spelling  and  arithmetic  given 
in  Springfield,  Massachusetts,  and  Cleveland,  Ohio,  forty 
to  sixty  years  ago,  have  been  given  in  recent  years  to  chil- 
dren of  the  same  age,  and  the  results  pubHshed.  The 
children  of  to-day  spell  better  and  know  more  arithmetic 
than  did  the  children  of  half  a  century  ago.  Measured 
by  the  standards  of  to-day,  the  schools  have  never  given 
a  solution  to  the  bread-and-butter  problem.  The  fact  that 
they  did  not  solve  the  problem  was  not  brought  home  to 
us  until  competition  became  sharp  and  the  untrained  boy 
found  no  market  for  his  labor  except  where  the  ignorant 
foreigner  offers  his  labor  for  sale. 

We  are  not  going  back  to  the  old-time  school.  It  gave 
neither  vocational  training  nor  a  well-balanced  develop- 
ment of  the  mind;  it  gave  little  culture.  It  did  give  the 
pupil,  in  a  crude  way,  a  few  of  the  simplest  tools  needed 
in  the  field  of  knowledge,  but  it  did  not  teach  him  how  to 
use  them.  We  shall  have  neither  the  old  school  nor  the 
present  school,  but  we  shall  never  wholly  cast  aside  either 
one.  Omitting  the  trade  schools,  which  America  has  not 
yet  developed,  our  schools  offer  substantially  the  same 
courses  offered  throughout  the  civilized  world.  These 
courses  represent  the  accumulated  thought  along  educa- 
tional lines  of  the  best  minds  of  the  centuries,  and  I,  for 
one,  am  unwilling  to  cast  them  ruthlessly  aside ;  they  rep- 
resent the  thought  of  Lowell,  and  Garfield,  and  Angell, 
and  Eliot,  and  Wilson,  and  a  host  of  other  scarcely  less 
illustrious  Americans.  Is  it  not  possible  that  too  much 
reading  of  the  magazines  has  made  us  mad?  It  is  high 
time  that  some  man  with  authority  to  speak,  stand  up  and 
shout,  **Stop !  let  us  sit  down  and  think  the  whole  matter 
over.  Modification  and  adaptation,  not  revolution,  is 
what  we  need." 

47 


Addresses  World's  Social  Progress  Congress 

The  city  of  Gary  has  a  message  for  all  of  us,  and  that 
message  is,  "Work  out  your  own  problem."  The  Gary 
idea  is  suited  to  every  city  and  every  community  in  the 
United  States,  the  Gary  course  of  study  is  suited  to  few 
cities  or  communities  in  the  United  States.  As  communi- 
ties as  a  whole  differ,  so  individuals  within  a  community 
differ.  Not  every  boy  and  girl  should  learn  a  trade,  and 
not  every  boy  and  girl  should  go  to  college.  Beyond  the 
mere  rudiments,  courses  for  boys  and  girls  should  be 
widely  different  except  where  they  are  to  enter  and  remain 
in  the  same  occupation  or  profession.  The  course  of 
study  has  sinned,  not  against  the  whole  school  popula- 
tion, but  against  the  boy  who  is  going  into  industrial  or 
business  life,  and  against  the  girl  who  is  going  into  the 
home.  That  the  schools  have  sinned  against  these  two 
large  classes  is  apparent  to  most  of  us.  The  repeated  at- 
tempts of  the  coeducational  colleges  and  women's  col- 
leges of  the  country  to  show  an  incredulous  public  that 
they  are  preparing  their  girls  to  become  wives  and  moth- 
ers only  serve  to  indicate  that  they  themselves  believe 
proofs  other  than  the  products  of  the  schools  are  needed. 
But  now  that  the  boy  who  is  to  become  a  mechanic  or  a 
merchant  is  to  receive  attention  in  the  school  course  and 
special  training  is  to  be  given  to  the  girl  who  is  to  occupy 
the  most  exalted  position  ever  attained  by  a  woman — the 
head  place  in  a  home — it  does  not  follow  that  the  entire 
curriculum  of  the  present-day  school  should  be  aban- 
doned. If  we  are  not  swept  completely  off  our  feet  by  this 
movement  toward  the  practical,  we  shall  probably  be  able 
to  see  that  the  old  courses  should  be  kept  and  the  new  ones 
added — that  the  training  offered  in  the  schools  should  be 
as  varied  as  are  the  occupations  and  talents  of  humanity. 

In  this  connection  there  is  one  fact  that  must  not  be 
overlooked ;  schools  offering  varied  courses  are  expensive 

48 


Education  and  Social  Progress 

and  schools  offering  a  single  course  of  study  are  inex- 
pensive. Many  of  the  courses  which  the  new  education 
is  recognizing  in  the  school  curriculum  are  demanded  by 
the  public  because  these  courses  are  no  longer  offered  in 
the  home.  Within  the  memory  of  people  in  this  audience, 
the  clothing  of  entire  families  was  made  in  the  home  from 
wool  as  it  came  from  the  back  of  the  sheep.  The  shoes 
for  the  family,  the  harness  for  the  horses  and  yoke  for 
the  oxen  were  made  and  mended  in  the  home.  Soap  and 
hominy  were  made,  fruit  canned,  meat  cured,  carpets 
woven — all  in  the  home.  The  children  learned  to  do  all 
of  these  things  as  well  as  to  make  their  own  toys.  The 
modern  home  has  turned  all  of  this  important  training 
over  to  the  schools.  If  the  new  school  costs  more  money 
than  the  old — and  it  does  cost  more  money — the  home  is 
to  blame,  not  the  school. 

The  school  of  the  future  in  America  must  not  only 
offer  a  wide  range  of  courses,  but  it  must  parallel  these 
courses  sufficiently  to  make  it  possible  for  a  student  to 
change  from  one  kind  of  school  to  another  without  seri- 
ous loss  of  time.  In  a  country  like  Germany,  where  class 
lines  are  definitely  drawn,  the  demand  for  parallel  courses 
does  not  exist,  but  in  a  republic  it  must  always  be  made 
easy  for  a  student  to  change  his  line  of  work  when  his 
unfolding  powers  give  him  a  new  vision  of  life's  possi- 
bilities. Since  this  vision  may  not  come  to  him  until  years 
after  he  has  left  the  school,  it  is  important  that  his  school 
course  be  somewhat  more  than  technical. 

Much  is  being  made  of  the  play  instinct  of  the  child. 
Systems  of  education  have  been  worked  out  by  which 
a  child  may  take  his  entire  school  course  without  perform- 
ing a  single  disagreeable  task,  the  assumption  being  that 
all  of  his  work  may  be  organized  and  presented  in  such 
a  way  as  to  make  him  really  enjoy  it.     At  first  glance, 

49 


Addresses  World's  Social  Progress  Congress 

-such  a  system  would  seem  to  be  wanting  in  nothing,  but 
upon  closer  examination  we  are  inclined  to  doubt  its  ef- 
ficiency in  the  development  of  character.  I  have  never 
been  quite  able  in  my  educational  creed  to  get  away  from 
a  motto  which  a  teacher  of  mine  kept  on  her  blackboard 
month  after  month — ''Strength  is  born  of  struggle." 
Strength  may  be  born  of  other  things,  but  this  teacher 
evidently  did  not  think  so,  for  she  never  mentioned  any 
source  but  struggle.  As  the  years  have  passed,  I  have 
found  myself  agreeing  with  her.  I  have  observed  that 
the  boy  whose  indulgent  parents  have  made  everything 
easy  for  him,  is  a  weakling.  He  really  works  at  nothing. 
He  plays  at  an  occupation  until  the  novelty  is  gone  and 
then  he  leaves  it.  He  lives  with  the  woman  he  marries 
until  her  physical  beauty  begins  to  wane,  and  then  he  de- 
serts her.  Duty  may  be  in  his  vocabulary,  but  it  is  not  and 
can  never  be  in  his  character,  for  the  only  way  to  make 
duty  a  part  of  a  man's  character  is  to  work  it  into  his  lite 
while  his  character  is  forming.  Patterns  are  sometimes 
stamped  upon  cheap  grades  of  cloth  after  the  cloth  is 
woven,  but  the  patterns  in  a  Persian  rug  are  woven  in  as 
the  rug  is  made.  Strength  is  born  of  struggle,  and  any 
system  of  education  that  leaves  the  disagreeable  wholly 
out,  that  has  no  place  for  hard  work,  that  fails  to  teach 
the  unselfishness  which  the  word  "duty"  implies,  is  not 
only  weak,  but  vicious.  I  like  the  definition  of  education 
given  by  Thomas  Huxley,  "A  training  that  gives  to  a  man 
the  ability  to  do  the  thing  he  ought  to  do  when  it  ought 
to  be  done,  regardless  of  whether  he  feels  like  doing  it 
or  not." 

The  world  has  too  many  people  who  are  trying  to  get 
something  for  nothing— people  who  are  respectable  gam- 
blers. Such  people  seek  to  make  their  way  through  the 
world  on  their  wits.    They  are  never  willing  to  pay  the 

50 


Education  and  Social  Progress 

full  price  of  the  things  they  want.  We  find  them  in  the 
schools.  They  seek  easy  methods,  easy  courses,  short 
courses.  Backed  by  their  parents,  they  ask  to  be  excused 
from  mathematics  or  science — work  in  any  department 
which  they  find  difficult.  Certain  educational  authorities 
of  the  day  have  responded  to  this  demand  and  declare 
that  there  is  nothing  in  formal  training — that  a  student 
derives  benefit  from  those  branches  of  study,  only,  which 
he  expects  to  use — that  training  in  a  given  field  does  not 
carry  over  into  another  field  except  in  so  far  as  the  two 
fields  have  elements  in  common.  Within  limits,  there  is 
logic  in  this  contention,  but  the  evil  growing  out  of  the 
theory  is  the  one  I  have  just  described,  that  of  avoiding 
all  the  time  the  drudgery  of  school  work.  It  is  an  exag- 
gerated form  of  the  play  idea.  If  I  were  to  ask  the  men 
of  this  audience  what,  in  their  experience,  made  the  great- 
est contribution  to  the  power  they  now  possess,  I  fancy 
that  most  of  them  would  say,  "Drudgery."  The  chief  dif- 
ference between  success  and  failure  lies  in  men's  capacity 
to  endure  the  disagreeable,  the  drudgery  of  Hfe.  Mere 
drudgery  of  itself,  avails  nothing,  but  the  drudgery  that 
is  inseparably  connected  with  the  every-day  tasks  of  every 
man  is  always  potent.  In  every  man's  life  there  come 
dark  days,  dark  years — years  in  which  he  feels  that  he  is 
not  going  forward  at  all.  This  is  the  point  at  which  the 
weakling  fails.  He  changes  his  occupation  or  he  quits. 
But  the  strong  man  goes  on,  knowing  that  the  stream  of 
his  life  is  only  temporarily  checked,  that  the  floods  are 
gathering  and  that  a  break  must  come.  From  these  weak- 
lings I  have  just  described  come  the  malcontents  of  so- 
ciety. These  are  the  men,  who,  in  middle  life  and  old  age 
rail  at  the  success  of  men  about  them.  They  demand  an 
article  for  which  they  never  paid,  and  when  they  do  not 
get  it  they  join  the  hosts  of  the  discontented  and  insist 

51 


Addresses  World's  Social  Progress  Congress 

upon  revolutionizing  the  whole  political  organism.  The 
theory  that  the  world  owes  any  man  a  living  is  danger- 
ously false.  With  our  western  lands  gone,  our  popula- 
tion increasing  rapidly,  the  law  of  diminishing  returns 
operating  in  our  mining  and  agricultural  regions,  the 
struggle  in  America  will  inevitably  become  fiercer  and  the 
army  of  the  discontented  Vv^ill  increase.  It  is  a  mistake 
to  suppose  that  the  army  of  the  unemployed  is  kept  up 
in  a  different  way  from  other  armies.  It  has  its  recruit- 
ing stations  in  homes  and  school-rooms  throughout  the 
land.  The  state  cannot  reach  the  home,  but  it  can  reach 
the  school.  Compulsory  attendance  laws  have  never  been 
enforced  in  America.  If  the  men  in  America  who  are  to- 
day idle,  had  received  two  more  years  of  schooling,  thou- 
sands of  them  would  be  employed  and  other  thousands 
would  have  savings  upon  which  to  live.  Ignorance,  idle- 
ness, and  improvidence  are  three  giants  which  have 
stalked  together  through  the  earth  in  all  ages,  leaving  suf- 
fering and  ruin  in  their  path.  Sometimes  I  have  thought 
that  what  a  child  studies  is  not  so  important  after  all. 
The  important  thing  is  that  he  learn  to  study — that  he 
learn  to  work — that  he  learn  to  do  the  necessary  drudgery 
of  life.  Let  the  schools  make  the  work  offered  attractive, 
let  them  help  every  child  find  his  place  in  the  world  and 
equip  him  for  filling  it,  but  let  them  never  cease  to  work 
into  the  lives  of  our  children  the  feeling  that  towering 
above  all  human  skill,  above  all  of  the  accomplishments 
of  genius,  all  appreciation  of  the  beautiful,  all  ministra- 
tions to  the  physical  needs  of  the  race,  is  that  something 
that  makes  the  captain  of  the  crew,  and  the  operator  at 
his  post,  sending  out  the  '*S.  O.  S.,"  the  last  men  to  leave 
the  sinking  ship.  We  may  eliminate  the  disagreeable 
from  a  boy's  school  course,  but  we  cannot  eliminate  the 

52 


Education  and  Social  Progress 

disagreeable  from  his  after  life  if  that  life  is  to  be  lived 
out  where  the  world's  work  is  done. 

The  citizens  of  a  republic  lack  discipline.  Always 
eager  to  make  laws,  they  are  seldom  vigilant  in  their  en- 
forcement. The  citizen  of  a  republic  is  an  individualist. 
He  does  not  like  restraint.  In  the  last  analysis  he  wants 
to  do  pretty  much  as  he  pleases.  If  there  is  not  a  way 
around  the  law,  and  there  usually  is,  he  ignores  it  or  sets 
about  to  have  it  repealed.  He  is  not  so  much  interested 
in  what  is  good  for  the  whole  people  as  he  is  interested 
in  what  he  thinks  is  good  for  him. 

In  monarchies,  the  individual  is  taught  in  the  home  and 
in  the  school  to  subordinate  his  personal  interests  to  those 
of  the  whole  people  as  represented  by  the  government. 
In  republics,  generally  and  in  our  own  especially,  this 
teaching  is  neglected.  Unconsciously  the  spirit  of  selfish- 
ness is  taught.  America  has  the  only  complete,  free,  pub- 
lic-school system  in  the  world.  Other  nations  have  pnly 
worked  out  in  part  the  problem  of  educating  at  public 
expense  the  whole  people.  In  America  the  state  owns 
the  schools — the  state  determines  what  the  instruction 
shall  be.  The  fathers  intended  that  the  schools  should, 
first  of  all,  contribute  directly  to  the  strength  of  the  state 
by  giving  preparation  for  citizenship.  In  the  years  we 
have  drifted  away  from  this  idea.  In  no  schools  in  the 
civilized  world  is  the  word  ''sacrifice"  less  used,  is  the 
spirit  of  loyalty  less  taught  than  in  our  own  schools. 
There  is  not  a  school  in  America,  outside  of  West  Point 
and  Annapolis,  which  has  for  its  purpose  the  training  of 
the  student  for  service  to  the  Government.  We  have 
erroneously  assumed  that  the  ability  to  think  and  the  skill 
necessary  to  earn  a  living  constitute  good  citizenship. 
Citizenship,  we  have  said,  is  a  by-product.  The  greatest 
lesson  ever  learned  in  this  world  is  the  lesson  of  obedi- 

53 


Addresses  World's  Social  Progress  Congress 

ence.  The  freest  man  is  the  man  who  obeys  the  most 
laws — the  laws  of  his  government,  the  laws  of  God. 
America  does  not  teach  this  lesson  in  the  home  or  in  the 
school.  The  spectacle  of  a  boy  in  knee  pants  leaving 
school  because  things  have  not  gone  to  suit  him  can  be 
witnessed  only  in  America.  A  strike  in  the  upper  grades 
or  in  the  high  school  with  a  committee  of  students  treat- 
ing with  the  Board  of  Education  is  American.  The  ad- 
mission by  parents  to  every  school  man  in  the  land  that 
they  cannot  control  their  children  who  are  yet  in  knee 
pants  and  short  dresses,  is  American — wholly  American. 
Good  citizenship  can  never  come  from  such  sources.  The 
schools  must  insist  upon  obedience  if  they  insist  upon 
nothing  else.  There  must  be  authority  even  in  a  republic. 
Lack  of  it  is  the  rock  upon  which  republics  in  all  ages 
have  gone  to  pieces.  They  have  lacked  coherence,  soli- 
darity. The  United  States  is  no  exception  to  the  rule. 
Our  wide  extent  of  territory,  east  and  west,  north  and 
south,  gives  us  conflicting  industrial  and  commercial  in- 
terests. We  are  a  nation  of  nationalities.  Races  which 
throughout  the  centuries  have  been  in  conflict  across 
the  seas  are  attempting  to  live  side  by  side  in  America. 
History  teaches  us  that  the  nations  which  have  stood  the 
test  of  the  centuries  have  had  solidarity  of  interest,  soli- 
darity of  race.  The  cohesive  force  of  loyalty  to  country 
has  held  them  bound  together.  Let  America  learn  this 
lesson,  and  through  her  public  schools  bind  togetlier  the 
conflicting,  the  centrifugal,  forces  of  this  republic. 

Social  progress  through  education  demands  an  en- 
riched course  of  study,  not  a  new  course  of  study.  The 
school  must  help  to  put  meaning  into  the  words  "Made 
in  the  United  States,"  for  we  are  to  become  a  manu- 
facturing people.  It  must  have  always  in  mind  the  com- 
plete development  of  the  whole  man — every  power,  every 

54 


Education  and  Social  Progress 

gift,  every  possibility  of  his  life  that  will  increase  his 
usefulness  to  society.  It  must  continue  to  give  culture. 
It  must  teach  the  dignity  of  honest  toil,  but  above  all 
else,  social  progress  demands  that  the  school  shall  give 
to  the  state  an  intelligent  and  useful  citizenship. 


55 


Chapter  V. 

COMMERCIALIZED  VICE  AND  SOCIAL 
PROGRESS. 

BY  DR.    KATE   WALLER  BARRETT. 

I  am  very  much  pleased  indeed  to  speak  to  you  this 
afternoon.  I  am  pleased  to  be  here  and  to  take  a  part 
in  such  a  great  social  congress,  and  to  represent  in  it  a 
phase  of  work  which  I  think  has  shown  as  much  progress 
as  any,  and  that  is  the  eHmination  of  commercialized  vice. 
I  have  the  privilege  of  being  the  president  of  the  Florence 
Crittenden  Mission,  which  has  seventy-five  homes  for 
girls,  and  also  of  being  the  representative  of  the  United 
States  Government  to  look  after  and  care  for  alien  girls 
who  may  be  brought  here  at  this  time  in  order  that  they 
may  be  present  during  the  exposition. 

It  is  almost  impossible,  as  we  look  about  us  to-day,  to 
realize  how  much  has  been  accomplished  and  what  won- 
derful things  have  been  done.  I  cannot  help  smiling  when 
I  think  of  the  characteristic  attitude  of  many  people  to- 
ward this  work ;  how  ignorant  and  how  unscientific,  and 
how  anxious  they  have  been  to  help ;  and  how  emotional 
and  sentimental  they  have  often  been.  We  have  an  ex- 
ample in  the  great  interest  awakened  by  the  question  of 
the  White  Slave  Traffic,  and  the  laws  in  regard  to  it. 
Now  we  are  beginning  to  understand  that  a  good  deal  of 
the  movement  has  been  ineffective  because  of  the  appeal 
to  sentiment  rather  than  facts,  and  as  one  of  the  older 
workers  in  the  movement,  I  can  honestly  say  that  I  am 
glad  that  the  wave  of  sentiment  has  gone  by,  and  that  we 

56 


Commercialized  Vice  and  Social  Progress 

have  now  reached  the  point  where  we  can  do  something 
constructive  and  practical. 

Do  you  realize  that  to-day  there  are  hardly  ten  cities 
in  the  United  States  of  over  one  hundred  thousand  inhab- 
itants, which  have  a  segregated  district?  All  the  others 
have  been  eliminated,  and  where  they  have  not,  there  are 
movements  on  foot  to  take  steps  to  eliminate  them.  It  is 
almost  impossible  to  realize  that  it  has  been  such  a  few 
years,  because,  when  I  used  to  travel  from  city  to  city, 
there  was  hardly  a  place  where  I  went  where  they  did 
not  have  a  segregated  district.  There  was  one  in  every 
city  of  any  size.  And  this  segregated  district  was  con- 
tinued, not  merely  by  the  evil  men  and  women  of  the  city, 
not  only  by  the  vicious  elements,  by  those  who  used  it,  but 
by  the  intelligent  men  and  women  who  had  arrived  at  the 
conclusion  that  this  was  the  only  way  that  the  social  evil 
could  be  dealt  with,  and  so  the  law  breakers  were  sepa- 
rated. The  greatest  difficulty  has  been  with  the  business 
element  in  the  community.  They  did  not  believe  that  this 
element  could  be  eliminated,  and  there  are  still  many  good 
men  and  women  who  will  say  to  you  that  it  is  better  to 
segregate  vice  rather  than  scatter  it  throughout  the  com- 
munity. 

I  want  to  say  to  you,  as  I  have  always  said  to  every 
group  of  men  and  women  like  you,  that  if  there  is  no 
other  solution  except  segregation  or  scattering,  that  you 
need  a  new  set  of  city  officials,  and  new  ideas  in  your  city. 
If  the  laws  are  not  enforced,  you  had  better  get  rid  of 
your  officials  and  get  somebody  that  will  enforce  them. 
Yet  for  many  years  this  was  the  attitude  even  of  intelli- 
gent officials. 

Not  long  ago  there  was  a  commission  appointed  in  the 
District  of  Columbia,  and  as  I  live  near  there,  and  am 
in  touch  with  conditions  in  the  city  there,  I  went  tO  QUe 

57 


Addresses  World's  Social  Progress  Congress 

of  these  commissioners,  a  man  who  stood  very  high  in 
the  community,  and  in  philanthropic  and  social  activities. 
I  went  to  see  him  with  a  group  of  ladies,  asking  that  the 
segregated  district  in  Washington  should  be  done  away 
with,  and  he  sat  there  in  his  magnificent  office,  behind 
his  splendid  desk,  and  looked  at  me  and  said:  "Mrs.  Bar- 
rett, you  are  very  familiar  with  conditions  in  Washing- 
ton ;  what  would  you  suggest  that  I  do  with  these  girls  ? 
Where  could  they  live?  Could  you  suggest  any  policy 
that  would  be  practical  and  effective  ?  I  am  sure  the  com- 
missioners would  be  able  and  willing  to  put  into  effective 
law  any  such  plan." 

Now,  I  had  known  of  many  women  who  had  been 
caught  in  that  trap,  who  have  tried  to  tell  these  men  how 
to  run  their  business  and  make  some  plan  for  them.  And 
I  looked  him  square  in  the  face,  and  I  said :  "When  I  take 
the  oath  of  office  as  commissioner,  to  enforce  the  laws, 
I  will  not  go  to  you  and  ask  you  how  to  enforce  them, 
or  what  your  advice  is.  I  should  have  some  idea  of  what 
to  do  before  taking  the  oath  of  office.  If  I  found  out 
that  I  couldn't  enforce  the  law,  instead  of  continuing  to 
hold  the  office,  I  would  give  it  up,  and  go  before  the  peo- 
ple and  ask  them  what  they  wanted  done." 

It  has  been  just  that  sort  of  fallacious  argument  which 
has  kept  this  vice  alive,  feeding  on  the  best  of  our  youth. 
As  I  sat  here  this  morning  listening  to  the  speakers,  I 
couldn't  help  realizing  how  this  new  movement  for  the 
elimination  of  commercialized  vice  is  bound  to  be  suc- 
cessful because  it  is  based  on  different  conditions  than 
have  hitherto  existed.  We  know  how  Victor  Hugo  re- 
ferred to  the  immoral  woman  as  the  eternal  priestess  of 
the  ages.  We  have  been  told  that  she  has  been  from  the 
beginning  and  will  always  be.  I  do  not  know  that  I  care 
to  controvert  either  of  these  statements,  but  I  do  say  that 

58 


Commercialised  Vice  and  Social  Progress 

commercialized  vice  can  be  done  away  with,  and  that 
the  association  with  our  civic  and  national  institutions  can 
be  divorced.     (Applause.) 

So  we  feel  that  this  movement  has  a  practical  basis  on 
the  men's  side,  I  believe  the  greatest  power  behind  this 
movement  has  been  the  high  conception  of  the  brother- 
hood of  man  and  our  moral  responsibility  for  the  welfare 
of  every  one  in  the  community  we  live  in.  I  believe  this 
is  the  main  fight,  but  it  has  been  strengthened  by  an  ap- 
preciation of  the  facts  and  an  appeal  to  the  business  men 
of  the  community.  That  was  dwelt  upon  by  one  of  the 
speakers  this  morning.  The  business  men  are  beginning 
to  realize  that  law  breakers  and  gamblers  are  no  longer 
an  asset,  but  a  liability,  to  a  city.  This  has  had  a  great 
effect.  When  we  first  took  up  this  fight,  we  thought  it 
was  local,  but  we  find  that  it  has  reached  out  into  all  the 
avocations  of  life.  We  do  know  now  the  value  to  the 
merchants  of  the  segregated  district  in  Washington, 
which  was  recently  closed,  after  existing  in  the  same  part 
of  the  city  ever  since  the  Civil  W^ar.  The  camp  follow- 
ers came  into  the  city  with  the  army,  and  after  the  army 
was  discharged  they  remained  there,  and  this  district  has 
continued  to  exist  there,  almost  under  the  shadow  of  the 
White  House,  until  last  March. 

For  years  we  have  been  going  to  Congress  and  to  the 
commissioners  to  urge  the  elimination  of  this  district ;  but 
Washington  was  a  long  way  from  the  home  States  of 
the  Congressmen,  and  they  were  indifferent;  and  you 
know  people  in  Washington  have  no  votes. 

These  Congressmen  were  so  far  away  from  home  that 
it  didn't  matter  to  them,  and  they  didn't  care  whether  we 
liked  it  or  not;  so  they  did  nothing.  Then  you  became 
educated  in  your  own  home  States ;  you  made  it  clear  to 
them  that  they  would  have  to  give  to  the  city  of  Washing- 

59 


Addresses  World's  Social  Progress  Congress 

ton  the  same  decent  government  that  yon  demanded  in 
your  own  cities.  So  when  the  movement  began  in  Wash- 
ington this  last  spring,  the  law  was  passed  unanimously, 
with  only  one  dissenting  vote.  No  one  particular  party 
can  claim  particular  praise  for  this  movement ;  they  all 
voted  for  the  elimination  of  the  segregated  district  be- 
cause the  policy  had  become  popular  in  other  cities  in 
the  States  from  which  they  had  come. 

So  the  district  was  closed.  We  found  there,  and  you 
will  find  it  everywhere,  that  the  ramifications  of  this  evil 
branch  out  through  the  whole  community.  The  mer- 
chants were  interested,  because  in  addition  to  the  ordinary 
sales  which  they  made  at  ordinary  prices,  they  got  ex- 
orbitant prices  from  these  girls.  In  many  of  the  houses 
there  were  automatic  piano  players  that  you  or  I  would 
have  to  pay  $800  or  $850  for  that  these  women  had  paid 
$1,250  for.  I  once  sat  in  a  rear  drawing-room  in  one 
of  these  places,  and  listened  while  a  representative  of  one 
of  the  leading  musical  firms — one  of  the  most  prominent 
and  reputable  firms  in  the  city — talked  with  the  woman 
who  had  been  running  the  house  about  a  pianola  for 
which  she  still  owed  $450.  She  wanted  him  to  give  her 
a  paper  so  that  when  she  opened  another  house  in  an- 
other city  she  would  have  credit  for  what  she  had  paid  in. 
He  refused  to  give  her  this  paper,  but  he  said,  *'0f  course 
we  will  do  everything  we  can  to  help  you  when  you  move, 
and  I  will  advise  you  where  to  go."  This,  you  under- 
stand, was  one  of  the  largest  musical  firms  in  Washing- 
ton, and  I  heard  all  this  with  my  own  ears.  She  said, 
**Well,  what  would  you  advise?"  *T  wouldn't  go  to  Bal- 
timore," he  said,  'T  think  they  will  close  up  there  soon, 
and  at  Alexandria  they  have  some  one  to  watch  people 
trying  to  come  in,  and  I  wouldn't  go  to  Richmond  or  At- 
lanta.   Savannah,  Georgia,  is  the  best  place.    They  won't 

60 


Commercialized  Vice  and  Social  Progress 

do  anything  to  you  there  ;  they  have  tried  and  failed.  We 
should  be  very  glad  to  write  to  some  real  estate  agent 
there  to  get  you  a  good  house  at  a  reasonable  price." 

Afterwards,  I  asked  about  the  house  where  this  con- 
versation took  place.  I  asked  a  young  woman  who  had 
been  there  three  years  what  the  rent  was,  and  she  said 
that  it  was  $75  a  week.  I  rented  that  same  house  two 
weeks  afterwards,  as  a  temporary  shelter  for  the  girls, 
and  I  paid  $60  a  month  for  this  same  house  that  this 
woman  had  been  paying  $75  a  week  for  as  a  disreputable 
house. 

A  few  weeks  later  a  woman  who  wanted  to  leave  the 
house  she  was  in  went  to  a  judge,  and  a  minister  was  in- 
terested in  her  and  came  to  see  her  and  helped  her.  One 
day  there  was  a  collection  taken  for  some  purpose,  and 
she  "sent  him  a  check  for  $25.  He  was  very  much  pleased 
to  receive  it,  and  turned  it  over  to  the  official  committee, 
and  said,  "This  is  from  one  of  the  women  who  has  been 
bad  and  has  been  converted."  And  one  of  the  men  said, 
"We  ought  not  to  take  this  money;  you  know  where  it 
was  earned."  So  finally  they  voted  not  to  take  the  money. 
So  the  minister,  in  order  to  break  it  as  gently  as  possible 
to  this  woman,  asked  one  of  the  good  women  of  the  parish 
to  go  to  her  and  explain  that  they  couldn't  take  it  because 
she  was  too  poor  to  afford  so  much ;  that  she  might  put 
a  dollar  in  the  contribution  box  now  and  then  to  show  her 
sentiment.  But  when  this  plan  was  carried  out,  the  woman 
was  too  shrewd  to  be  deceived,  and  she  said,  "I  know 
what  is  the  matter ;  some  one  has  objected  to  the  money. 
Is  it  Mr.  Blank?"  And  she  named  a  very  prominent 
member  of  the  church  who  was  in  the  real  estate  business. 
The  visitor  tried  to  evade  the  question,  but  it  was  no 
use;  the  woman  said:  *T  know  it  is  Mr.  Blank;  it  is  just 
like  him.     I  paid  him   rent  for  one  of  his  houses   for 

61 


Addresses  IVorld's  Social  Progress  Congress 

twenty-two  years,  and  I  paid  over  fifty  per  cent  of  the 
value,  and  he  thought  the  money  was  good  enough  for 
him.  You  take  my  check  back  to  Mr.  Blank  and  let  him 
carry  it  a  day  or  two  in  his  pocket  and  then  it  will  be  sanc- 
tified enough  to  use  in  the  collection." 

That  is  the  real  condition  that  exists,  not  only  in  busi- 
ness, but  in  the  professions.  Take  medicine,  the  noble 
profession  of  medicine;  how  they  have  exploited  these 
girls,  God  only  knows.  It  has  debased  the  law ;  the 
lawyers  taught  the  women  how  they  might  do  things  for- 
bidden by  the  law  without  being  caught. 

When  the  law  abolishing  the  district  was  passed  in 
Washington  there  was  a  really  fine  woman  who  had  been 
there  a  long  time,  and  I  coveted  her  for  my  work  to  get 
in  touch  with  some  of  the  girls.  I  had  known  her  for 
years ;  she  had  never  broken  a  law.  I  pleaded  with  her 
and  finally  she  said  she  would  let  me  know  the  next  day ; 
but  I  didn't  hear  from  her,  and  I  called  her  up  and  got 
no  answer  until  at  five  o'clock  the  messenger  said  that  she 
would  see  me  the  next  morning  at  nine.  When  she  came 
and  I  talked  to  her,  I  found  that  she  had  spent  the  whole 
preceding  day  at  a  lawyer's  office  in  Washington,  in  com- 
munication with  three  of  the  most  reputable  firms  in  the 
city,  who  had  been  trying  to  persuade  her  to  bring  suit 
and  make  a  test  case  of  this  new  injunction  law,  in  order 
to  try  to  overturn  the  law  and  retard  its  enforcement. 
"I  wanted  to  do  it,"  she  told  me ;  **the  man  I  loved  wanted 
me  to  do  it ;  but  if  this  place  had  not  been  a  segregated 
district  I  should  never  have  been  here.  I  know  hundreds 
of  girls  would  be  safe  if  they  had  not  been  drawn  in  here. 
I  know  that  I  can  never  use  this  house  for  anything  else, 
but  I  would  rather  do  without  the  return  on  my  property 
than  overset  a  law  that  will  benefit  every  one."  This  was 
from  a  disreputable  woman. 

62 


Commercialized  Vice  and  Social  Progress 

There  is  a  test  being  made  in  Washington  now,  but  it 
was  not  a  woman  who  brought  the  suit,  but  the  real  estate 
interests.  It  has  been  done  by  one  of  the  oldest  firms,  the 
one  with  which  Mr.  Willett  is  connected,  who  is  now  rep- 
resenting us  at  the  court  of  Spain.  When  a  hotel,  which 
had  been  hitherto  respectable,  opened  its  doors  to  disrepu- 
table women  and  law  breakers,  and  it  became  the  head- 
quarters for  that  sort  of  thing,  one  of  the  newspapers 
took  the  question  up  and  an  injunction  was  issued  against 
this  hotel.  In  order  that  the  property  might  not  be  tied 
up,  the  Willett  Real  Estate  Company  made  a  test  case  of 
it.  It  is  a  cause  of  congratulation  to  me  that  it  was  not 
an  unfortunate  woman,  but  big  business  that  tried  to  over- 
turn this  law.  It  has  given  me  greater  hope  for  humanity 
and  of  my  own  sex,  and  the  sense  of  responsibility  to  take 
away  the  chains  that  bind,  and  take  away  the  power  to  ex- 
ploit them  and  use  the  weak  and  yielding.  We  must  pro- 
tect them,  and  destroy  the  power  that  drags  these  girls 
down.  Many  of  them  are  weak  and  subnormal,  it  is  true, 
but  they  can  be  used  in  some  less  expensive  way,  econom- 
ically, socially,  and  morally. 

I  feel  that  there  is  room  for  hope,  and  am  so  glad  to 
know  of  this  movement  for  social  progress,  for  there  is 
need  of  a  forum  where  these  things  will  be  discussed,  not 
in  an  emotional  way,  but  by  those  who  are  just  and  in- 
telligent, as  well  as  warm-hearted,  and  I  believe  this  or- 
ganization represents  that  element. 


63 


Chapter  VI. 

SOCIAL  INCORPORATION  AND  SOCIAL 
PROGRESS. 

BY   JOHN    HENRY   WHYTE. 

This  is  the  history  of  a  tiny  effort  to  solve  the  world's 
greatest  industrial  problem,  and  I  believe  it  to  be  a  prac- 
tical and  ideal  solution  for  mankind's  biggest  problems. 

The  signs  of  the  times  indicate  that  incorporated  farm- 
ing, combining  scientific  knowledge  and  modern  big  busi- 
ness management,  will  be  an  important  industrial  ten- 
dency of  this  decade,  and  that  it  will  pay  bigger  dividends 
than  railroads,  banking,  or  insurance. 

INTROJ^UCTORV. 

There  will  be  much  jostling  before  the  end  of  this  de- 
cade to  secure  a  place  in  the  forefront  of  the  mightiest 
industrial  movement  the  world  has  ever  seen,  the  rosy 
dawn  of  which  already  lights  the  eastern  sky  of  the 
realms  of  progressive  civilization. 

Incorporated  Farming  is  the  term  which  now  best  de- 
scribes the  movement.  Social  Incorporation  will  be  a  bet- 
ter term  after  the  public  becomes  familiar  with  it,  for 
the  movement  will  ultimately  and  inevitably,  through  the 
natural  processes  of  evolution,  include  all  of  man's  indus- 
trial and  social  activities. 

The  most  perfect  industrial  or  social  organization,  the 
chief  evolutionary  product  culminating  from  all  the  ages 
of  human  ingenuity,  is  the  corporation,  and  is  represented 
by  the  big,  modern,  incorporated  industries,  or  the  pres- 
ent-day social  corporations,  the  town,  the  county,  the  city, 

64 


Social  Incorporation  and  Social  Progress 

the  State,  or  the  Nation.  Incorporation  will  ever  tend  in 
a  continuous  course  of  evolution  toward  a  still  higher 
perfection,  to  be  adapted  to  human  needs.  The  social  cor- 
poration as  now  organized  has  evolved  from  industrial 
wants  and  exists  because  of  industrial  reasons.  The 
necessity  of  industry  gave  birth  to  this  social  or  civic 
corporation,  the  chief  functions  of  which,  from  the  town 
on  up  through  the  State  to  the  Nation,  are  now  seen  to 
be  the  regulation  of  industrial  corporations,  and  through 
the  process  and  methods  of  regulation,  the  industrial  and 
social  threads  are  being  woven  into  an  inseparable  tex- 
ture. 

The  functional  difference  between  an  incorporated  in- 
dustry of  importance,  and  a  state,  is  year  by  year  grow- 
ing less  and  less.  Finally  there  will  be  but  one  or  the 
other.  The  survival  will  be  the  social  corporation,  which 
will  include  both  the  industrial  and  social  activities  ana 
functions.  The  social  corporation  will  be  mankind's  su- 
preme, earthly  achievement. 

Some  industrial  corporations,  within  the  knowledge  of 
the  present  generation,  have  at  times  achieved  greater 
influence  in  many  directions  than  States,  but  eventually 
the  States  or  the  Nation  have  rightfully  assumed  the  gov- 
erning hand,  because  industrial  corporations  receive  their 
charters  from  social  corporations  which  are  the  people. 
But  the  majority,  as  well  as  the  minority  of  the  people, 
and  the  industries,  will  become  the  same  through  incor- 
poration. 

The  corporation  is  the  most  substantial  thing  known. 
Although  composed  of  human  individuals,  it  never  dies. 
The  principles  of  power  in  the  corporation,  when  used 
as  the  forces  for  good,  go  farther  than  any  other  humanly 
contrived  means  toward  solving  the  world's  greatest 
problems. 

65 


Addresses  World's  Social  Progress  Congress 

The  Social  Corporation,  beginning  with  the  Incor- 
porated Farm,  will  absorb  the  labor  union  as  now  consti- 
tuted, and  go  farther  than  the  proposals  of  Christian 
sociaHsm,  for  under  its  dominion  the  laborer  will  ulti- 
mately receive  all  the  profits  of  his  toil.  Single  tax  will 
be  a  fundamental  principle,  because  a  tax  on  land,  allow- 
ing absolute  freedom  from  tax  restrictions  for  all  indus- 
trial activities,  will  be  the  only  kind  possible,  when  land 
because  of  the  food  that  comes  from  it,  is  the  universally 
recognized  base  of  all  industrial,  therefore,  of  all  social 
organizations. 

Scientific  knowledge,  now  mostly  utilized  for  purely  re- 
search purposes,  in  combination  with  modern  big  business 
management  and  efficiency  cost  sheets,  will  have  in  the 
conduct  of  the  Incorporated  Farm,  the  more  practical 
purpose  of  ennobling  toil  with  the  highest  rank  of  dig- 
nity, while  increasing  the  profits  and  happiness  of  the 
toilers. 

An  extended  view  into  the  future  reveals  the  Incorpor- 
ated Farm,  in  the  course  of  evolution,  taking  on  more 
and  more  the  functions  of  manufacturing. 

In  the  final  view,  the  individual  farmer  will  transfer 
his  little  farm  to  this  big,  modern,  farm  corporation,  tak- 
ing stock  in  payment  for  its  value,  for  it  is  not  land,  only, 
that  man  wants,  but  an  opportunity  for  the  greatest  pos- 
sible physical  and  menta-l  developments,  thus  securing  ma- 
terial and  spiritual  happiness. 

When  such  a  combination  had  apparent  economic  value, 
the  various  farm  corporations  would  ultimately  amalga- 
mate. 

FUNDAMENTAL    PRINCIPLES. 

The  Incorporated  Farm,  or  corporation,  will  have  as 
its  fundamental  base,  the  combination  of  all  that  is  pow- 

66 


Social  Incorporation  and  Social  Progress 

erful  for  good  in  modern  corporate  development  applied 
to  the  most  necessary  business  of  life,  that  of  producing 
food,  with  the  advantages  of  the  most  practical,  technical 
school  of  the  age. 

The  purpose  of  the  Incorporated  Farm  is  essential  to 
bring  the  most  desirable  living  conditions  to  the  land, 
with  profits  equaling  those  of  the  estabHshed  city  business 
pursuits,  of  the  professional  and  trade  pursuits,  with  less 
toil  and  a  greater  amount  of  time  for  physical,  mental, 
and  spiritual  improvement.  Its  motto  will  be,  'Svork  to 
live,"  and  not  "live  to  work."  The  grind  of  the  present 
industrial  system  will  be  diminished  to  reasonable  pro- 
portions. The  "high  cost  of  living"  and  the  "forward  to 
the  land"  problems  will  be  solved,  and  congested  popula- 
tion in  big  cities  prevented.  The  maximum  possibilities 
for  human  happiness  will  be  offered.  Conditions  for 
higher  human  development  will  be  offered. 

The  Incorporated  Farm  will  not  have  for  its  purpose 
the  enrichment  of  any  particular  individual  or  family, 
and  thus  will  be  eliminated  the  only  evil  of  the  modern 
industrial  corporation. 

The  land  held  by  the  Incorporated  Farm  will  never  be 
divided.  Stock  will  be  issued  for  it.  Incorporation  is 
the  most  successful  co-operation  known.  This  is  an 
axiom. 

There  will  be  no  mortgages  or  bonds  provided  for  the 
Incorporated  Farm,  and  therefore  there  will  be  no  bank- 
ruptcy. All  lands  will  be  paid  for  before  farming  oper- 
ations begin,  thus  maintaining  financial  durability  at  the 
highest  known  standard. 

The  Incorporated  Farm  will  be  financed  alike  by  the 
funds  contributed  by  small  investors  seeking  to  get  for- 
ward to  the  land,  and  by  the  large  investors  wishing  to 
secure  the  safest  and  most  attractive  investments. 


Addresses  World's  Social  Progress  Congress 

Academic  truths  and  platitudes  make  it  certain  that 
land  is  the  most  substantial  and  remunerative  base  of  the 
big,  modern,  industrial  corporation. 

The  future  of  the  American  nation,  of  all  nations,  is  to 
be  determined  most  largely  by  the  development  of  agri- 
cultural resources,  a  truth  recognized  by  the  leading 
statesmen,  directors  of  important  industries,  and  leaders 
of  modern  civilization. 

The  problem  of  the  future  food  supply  of  this  nation, 
of  any  nation,  is  the  biggest  single  problem  with  which 
the  people  have  to  contend. 

The  United  States  Agricultural  Department  is  the  acme 
of  human  achievement  for  the  advancement  of  scientific 
agriculture,  its  methods  surpassing  all  others  ever  con- 
trived. 

The  State  agricultural  colleges  are  now  disseminating 
information,  which,  when  properly  applied,  greatly  in- 
creases the  productivity  of  the  soil  and  enables  numerous 
graduates  to  earn  splendid  salaries  as  agricultural  ex- 
perts. 

These  excellent  institutions  have  not  only  increased  the 
yield  of  staple  crops,  but  have  introduced  many  new  ones, 
one  of  the  best  known  and  most  profitable  of  which  is 
alfalfa. 

Whatever  the  Department  of  Agriculture  has  done, 
whatever  the  agricultural  colleges  have  done,  this  biggest 
and  most  modern  industrial  corporation  could  do  better. 
Industrial  corporation  development  makes  the  truth  of 
this  assertion  self-evident. 

TO  ABSORB   MANUFACTURING. 

The  Incorporated  Farm  would,  through  the  processes 
of  successful  growth,  enter  more  and  more  largely  into 
manufacturing.     Live  stock,  grain,  fruit,  and  vegetables 

68 


Social  Incorporation  and  Social  Progress 

would  find  their  way  to  market  as  finished  food  products. 
Cotton  cloth,  not  cotton  bales,  would  be  the  product  for 
sale,  and  the  same  would  be  true  of  wool,  flax,  silk,  and 
other  textiles. 

The  corporation  will  take  over  the  functions  of  the 
abbatoir,  packing  house,  cannery,  and  mill.  It  will  ab- 
sorb the  profits  now  going  into  the  coffers  of  manufac- 
turers. Manufacturing  and  farming  will  become  one  and 
the  same. 

In  all  manufacturing  operations  that  the  Incorporated 
Farm,  through  consistent,  economic  evolution  will  enter, 
it  will  also  excel,  because  its  students  will  have  the  sur- 
passing fitness  of  the  best  technical  training,  and  the 
further  incentive  that  they  are  working  at  their  own  busi- 
ness. Experienced  factory  hands  will  leave  the  factories 
where  they  are  now  employed  to  work  for  the  Incorpor- 
ated Farm. 

PROFITS. 

As  the  corporation  would  follow  all  products  to  the 
consumer  through  the  marketing,  and  ultimately  through 
the  manufacturing  processes,  there  would  be  more  profits 
accruing  than  would  be  possible  to  any  individual. 

The  general  average  crop  yields  the  country  over  are 
less  than  ten  per  cent  of  the  maximum  yields.  Most  of 
this  ninety  per  cent  of  deficiency  can  be  overcome  by 
expert,  scientific  knowledge. 

The  signs  of  the  times  indicate  that  incorporated  farm- 
ing, which  indeed  has  already  begun,  and  will  increase  in 
a  geometrical  ratio  year  after  year  with  its  combination 
of  modern,  big  business  management  and  scientific  knowl- 
edge, will  pay  larger  dividends  than  railroads,  banking, 
insurance,  or  manufacturing  as  conducted  under  the  in- 
dustrial system  it  is  displacing.  The  Incorporated  Farm  at 

69 


Addresses  World's  Social  Progress  Congress 

Ingleside,  Phoenix,  Arizona,  has  been  in  operation  since 
March  5,  1914,  and  those  interested  are  cordially  invited 
to  come  and  see  for  themselves,  or  if  they  cannot  come, 
write  for  literature.  Its  stockholders  are  made  up  of  St. 
Louis,  Chicago,  and  New  York  newspaper  men  and  their 
friends.  The  business  managers  of  two  large,  metropol- 
itan newspapers,  and  the  managing  editor  of  another,  are 
on  the  Board  of  Directors,  as  is  the  grandson  of  the 
founder  of  one  of  the  oldest  and  best  known  metropol- 
itan dailies  in  the  Central  States. 

Many  well-informed  people  profess  to  believe  that  even 
the  inexperienced  clerk  nowadays  can  make  more  than 
twenty-five  per  cent  profit  on  his  capital  and  labor  in- 
vested in  intensive  farming,  counting  his  labor  at  pro- 
fessional prices. 

Others  add  weight  and  influence  to  this  statement  who 
do  not  actually  believe  it,  but  because  of  the  high  cost 
of  living,  selfishly  wish  to  encourage  as  many  people  as 
possible  to  go  forward  to  the  land,  and  thus  indirectly 
secure  better  conditions  for  themselves  away  from  the 
land.  But  this  false  encouragement  will  not  influence 
many  people.  The  ultimate  hope  of  profits,  of  more  sat- 
isfactory living  conditions,  of  the  prospects  of  greater 
happiness,  are  the  main  influences  propelling  to  this  as  to 
other  lines  of  human  endeavor.  No  one  undertakes  to 
accomplish  a  task  without  expecting  to  be  rewarded  in 
some  manner  satisfactory  to  himself  through  the  laws  of 
compensation. 

But  when  all  selfish  reasons  for  encouraging  people  to 
go  to  the  land  are  brushed  aside,  it  may  still  be  said  that 
scarcely  any  one  doubts  that  there  are  many  authenti- 
cated examples  of  farm  profits  of  one  hundred  per  cent 
or  more,  produced  by  the  scientific  farming  of  grains, 
fruits,  and  vegetables,  or  in   the  raising  of  live  stock. 

70 


Social  Incorporation  and  Social  Progress 

accounts  of  which  we  may  constantly  read  in  the  mag- 
azines, newspapers,  and  special  treatises. 

When  profits  and  other  conditions  are  promising 
enough,  there  will  be  a  genuine  movement  forward  to  the 
land,  and  not  before.  Men  do  not  join  in  a  movement  out 
of  mere  fancy,  a  refined  patriotism  that  might  lead  to 
many  hard  knocks,  with  the  majority  singularly  indif- 
ferent to  their  misfortunes. 

There  is  not  a  single  business  of  which  it  is  not  truly 
said  that  it  is  overrun,  but  while  the  individual  farmer 
must  under  the  existing  industrial  system  take  his  chances 
in  competition  as  other  business  men  do,  he  will  gladly 
join  his  strength  to  that  of  his  neighbor  in  the  incorpor- 
ated farm  when  he  is  convinced  of  the  advantage  to  be 
derived. 

No  man  can  successfully  deny  the  practical  facilities 
of  the  modern  industrial  corporation  for  producing  prof- 
its, when  it  has  plenty  of  money,  an  abundance  of  integ- 
rity, and  is  advised  by  the  leading  scientists,  experts,  and 
the  best  modern  big  business  managers. 

Applied  to  farming,  to  the  resultant  manufacturing 
operations,  and  to  the  marketing  of  the  products,  these 
facilities  will  produce  the  greatest  possible  profits,  just 
as  when  they  have  been  applied  to  any  modern  industry, 
the  greatest  of  which  have  already  proven  their  merits 
and  advantages. 

The  corporation  will  soon  become  popularized  through 
the  ownership  of  its  securities  by  a  large  number  of  peo- 
ple with  small  means,  because  their  profits  will  be  greater 
than  those  ofifered  by  savings  banks,  and  safer. 

A  TECHNICAL  SCHOOL. 

The  corporation  will  continuously  operate  a  modern, 
practical,  technical  school,  the  term  "school"  being  in- 
clusive of  every  branch  of  learning. 

71 


Addresses  World's  Social  Progress  Congress 

To  the  students,  the  terms  "corporation"  and  ''ahna 
mater"  will  be  synonymous. 

The  operatives  of  the  corporation  will  always  be  called 
students,  whether  young  or  old,  male  or  female,  and  not 
"laborers,"  signifying  that  they  are  constantly  striving  to 
learn. 

In  no  sense  will  the  corporation  interfere  with  the 
American  public  schools,  for  they  are  the  most  perfect 
the  world  has  ever  seen,  and  will  constantly  become  more 
practical  and  suitable  to  human  needs.  The  corporation 
will  provide  technical  training,  not  at  this  time  found  in 
the  public  schools,  until  the  educational  needs  of  its  stu- 
dents are  fully  satisfied  by  the  public  school  curriculums. 

The  corporation  curriculum  will  provide  for  the  fullest 
development  of  both  mind  and  body,  but  technical  train- 
ing will  come  first,  as  man  must  first  be  able  to  sustain 
life  and  provide  its  necessities,  that  there  may  be  possi- 
bilities for  physical,  mental,  and  spiritual  development. 
Domestic  service,  training  for  home  keepers,  successful 
wives  and  husbands,  will  be  given  careful  attention.  Prac- 
tical questions  of  health  and  hygiene,  and  sex  relations, 
will  be  studied.  The  subjects  of  good  government  and 
good  citizenship  will  be  investigated  and  taught  as  a  sci- 
ence. 

Equal  honor  and  dignity  will  be  provided  for  the  work 
of  the  hand  and  of  the  head.  By  successfully  combining 
technical  training  and  practical  business,  scientific  ex- 
perts superior  to  any  will  be  produced,  because  they  will 
at  all  times  be  in  touch  with  the  business  side  of  agri- 
culture, that  of  making  the  greatest  amount  of  profits 
compatible  with  physical,  mental,  and  spiritual  prosperity. 

Students,  boys,  girls,  men,  or  women,  may  enter  the 
corporation  school  without  cost  for  tuition,  if  they  have 
the  mental  and  physical  capacity,  and  graduate  into  higher 

72 


Social  Incorporation  and  Social  Progress 

ideals  of  living  and  greater  possibilities  of  attainment 
than  ever  previously  conceived  by  them.  But  students 
who  have  no  money  will  invest  a  portion  of  their  earn- 
ings in  the  stock  of  the  corporation  until  they  have  ac- 
quired sufficient  to  insure  that  they  will  not  become  a 
burden  on  charity  along  with  mental  and  physical  de- 
ficients. Finding  it  possible  and  desirable  to  pay  their 
tuition  by  exhilarating  labor  of  their  own  hands,  students 
will  graduate  directly  into  remunerative,  life-long  service 
of  their  alma  mater,  doing  the  things  for  which  they  are 
best  fitted,  and  for  which  they  have  the  greatest  natural 
or  acquired  inclination  and  aptitude. 

As  the  students  advance  in  efficiency  through  the  merit 
system,  they  will  receive  more  and  more  wages  up  to  a 
standard  maximum. 

The  schoolhouses  will  also  be  libraries  and  halls  for 
community-meeting  purposes,  where  lectures  will  be 
heard,  sermons  preached,  orations  delivered,  and  moving 
pictures,  the  greatest  of  modern  teachers,  exhibited  and 
observed.  They  will  become  the  community  social  cen- 
ters where  there  will  be  provided  wholesome  diversions 
and  amusements,  including  music  and  dancing. 

A   SQUARE  EDUCATIONAL  DEAL. 

In  arguing  for  vocational  training  recently,  Professor 
Bolton,  of  the  University  of  Washington,  made  the  point 
that  our  present  school  system  culminating  in  the  high 
school,  does  not  give  the  public  a  square  deal.  While  it 
provides  for  the  needs  of  the  minority  that  look  forward 
to  culture  and  professional  careers,  it  is  also  imperative 
to  provide  for  the  majority  of  the  children  who  will  be  the 
future  wage-earners  and  tillers  of  the  soil.  In  this  re- 
spect the  public-school  system  is  emphatically  unfair  and 
undemocratic.     Justice  and  business  efficiency  alike  de- 

73 


Addresses  World's  Social  Progress  Congress 

mand  a  systematic  plan  for  industrial  education.  This 
kind  of  a  square  deal  would  prove  a  profitable,  national 
investment. 

HOME  PROVISIONS. 

The  corporation  will  always  provide  students  and  stock- 
holders a  place  where  they  may  build  a  home.  They  can 
build  at  any  time  and  know  that  the  home  will  be  open 
for  them  as  long  as  they  live,  for  it  would  always  re- 
main without  financial  encumbrance  under  the  protection 
of  the  corporation. 

Part  of  the  money  necessary  for  building  a  home  will 
be  furnished  by  the  corporation.  The  students  will  live 
in  their  own  homes  where  they  may  rear  their  children  in 
God's  blessed  sunshine  and  fresh  air,  most  efficient  med- 
icines and  vitalizers.  Those  who  prefer  may  live  at  cost 
at  the  corporation's  clubs,  lodges,  and  hotels. 

All  buildings  on  the  corporation  land  will  be  con- 
structed at  cost  under  the  direction  of  a  competent  archi- 
tect, who  will  see  that  they  are  not  only  beautiful,  but 
provided  with  every  modern  accessory  for  sanitation,  hy- 
giene, and  comfort.  It  is  now  possible  to  cool  houses  in 
the  summer  and  warm  them  in  the  winter  by  the  same 
electrical  energy.  Ice  is  manufactured  and  cooking  done 
in  many  modern  homes  by  the  same  electrical  current. 
Mechanical  devices  for  these  processes  are  on  the  mar- 
ket. No  farming  corporation  is  modern  that  does  not 
provide  electricity.  We  have  it.  The  use  of  electricity 
in  modern  industrial  and  domestic  operations  is  becoming- 
more  and  more  universal. 

IDEALISM. 

The  noticeable  element  of  weakness  in  the  modern  la- 
bor union  will  be  avoided,  as  students  capable  of  earning 

74 


Social  Incorporation  and  Social  Progress 

the  most  money  will  receive  the  most,  as  they  graduate 
upwards  into  higher  earning  capacities  through  the  merit 
system. 

The  dream  of  Christian  socialism  will  be  more  fully 
realized  in  that  the  students  will  ultimately  receive  all  the 
profits  of  their  labor.  While  there  will  at  first  be  stock- 
holders who  are  not  students,  when  they  offer  stock  for 
sale,  they  would  first  tender  it  to  the  corporation,  which 
would  allot  it  to  the  students  in  order  of  application,  so 
that  the  students  will  eventually  become  the  owners  of 
all  the  stock  and  receive  all  the  profits.  This  regulation 
will  insure  that  all  of  the  stockholders  will  eventually  be- 
come students. 

No  students  will  ultimately  be  allowed  to  work  longer 
than  eight  hours  per  day,  which  is  sufficient  gain-produc- 
ing toil  for  the  individual.  The  remaining  eight  hours 
for  physical,  mental,  and  spiritual  betterment  will  be  em- 
ployed in  study  and  recreation,  development  of  body  and 
mind.  The  eight  hours  for  sleep  will  be  under  conditions 
where  the  mind  and  body  are  the  least  tired  and  worn, 
for  air  and  sunshine  and  plentiful  and  wholesome  food 
best  maintain  health. 

As  the  corporation  grows  into  large  proportions,  the 
problems  of  drought  and  irrigation  will  disappear.  The 
sufficient  water  of  the  great  rivers  will  be  utilized  to  over- 
come these  defects.  But  the  practical,  incorporated  farm 
can  be  most  effectually  begun  where  present-day  irriga- 
tion methods  are  the  most  perfect. 

Ample  opportunity  will  be  afforded  for  the  active  em- 
ployment of  every  faculty  possessed  by  the  students. 
Their  services  will  bring  the  largest  remuneration  ob- 
tainable from  the  corporation.  But  remuneration  will 
have  a  secondary  importance  when  the  students  receive  all 
the  profits  of  their  toil.    Under  the  perfected  social  cor- 

75 


Addresses  World's  Social  Progress  Congress 

poration,  the  details  of  profits  will  be  regulated  by  the 
physical  and  mental  needs  of  individuals,  expressed  in 
statutes. 

The  corporation,  operating  lands  in  different  parts  of 
the  country,  will  make  it  possible  for  individual  fam- 
ilies to  enjoy  a  change  of  cHmate  while  carrying  on  their 
vocations. 

The  students  will  work  out  the  most  important  prob- 
lems of  science,  engineering,  architecture,  of  the  whole 
scope  of  human  endeavor  and  invention.  These  problems 
will  still  be  more  attractive  because  they  will  be  as  re- 
munerative as  interesting,  for  the  corporation  will  be  able 
to  turn  them  to  immediate  and  practical  account,  having 
the  most  practical  place  for  their  immediate  utility. 
Awards  of  money  will  be  given  those  originating  or  in- 
venting new  and  useful  things.  Thus  satisfying  employ- 
ment to  all  students  will  be  furnished  during  the  entire 
portion  of  lifetime  allotted  to  toil  for  gain. 

Students  will  be  retired  at  a  fixed  age,  or  as  soon  as 
they  have  acquired  sufficient  stock  of  the  corporation  to 
afford  them  an  independent  income,  the  amount  of  which 
will  be  standardized,  minimizing  if  not  entirely  doing 
away  with  pensions  and  insurance  for  employees,  as 
such. 

A  limit  will  be  placed  on  the  amount  of  stock  students 
may  acquire.  After  retiring,  students  may  devote  all 
their  time  to  study  and  travel,  to  completer  mental  and 
physical  development.  The  highest  possible  honors  will 
be  conferred  upon  retired  students  who  accomplish  the 
greatest  service  for  their  fellows. 

Further  regulations  for  the  conduct  of  the  affairs  of 
the  corporation  will  safely  evolve  out  of  the  trained  minds 
and  united  wisdom  of  the  students. 

76 


Social  Incorporation  and  Social  Progress 

TRANSPORTATION. 

Trolley  lines  and  steam  railroads  will  be  built  when 
necessary  to '  complete  present  transportation  arrange- 
ments. These  will  eventually  become  part  of  the  com- 
mon carrier  system  and  pass  under  government  regula- 
tion, then  ultimate  government  ownership. 

In  some  localities  rivers  will  make  it  possible  to  utilize 
water  craft.  A  far  enough  extended  view  into  the  fu- 
ture exhibits  the  Incorporated  Farm  as  the  social  cor- 
poration with  the  means  of  transportation  as  mere  ad- 
juncts, when  all  civic  and  industrial  needs  will  be  ex- 
pressed in  statutes. 

The  prosperity  of  the  agricultural  district,  the  value  of 
its  farm  lands,  depends  very  largely  upon  the  quality  of 
the  public  roads.  As  the  Incorporated  Farm  makes  the 
interests  of  the  community  identical,  develops  and  per- 
fects the  science  of  road  building,  assisted  by  the  Federal 
Good  Roads  Bureau  at  Washington,  the  isolation  of 
country  fife  will  vanish  in  the  wake  of  transportation 
facilities  necessary  to  carry  on  the  business  of  the  big- 
gest, modern  corporation.  The  students  of  the  Incorpor- 
ated Farm  will  ride  in  automobiles  when  they  wish,  for 
whatever  there  is  that  is  good,  is  none  too  good  for  them. 

The  making  of  good  roads  will  soon  cause  the  United 
States  to  be  envied  by  all  other  nations.  More  good  roads 
will  be  made  in  this  country  within  the  next  five  years,  in 
all  likelihood,  than  have  ever  yet  been  made.  Since 
March,  1913,  the  Lincoln  Highway,  from  New  York  to 
San  Francisco,  all  the  way  across  this  continent,  has 
been  so  nearly  perfected  that  more  than  twenty-five  thou- 
sand automobiles  will  come  to  San  Francisco  this  year  to 
attend  the  exposition.  The  Lincoln  Highway  is  destined 
to  be  the  trunk  of  the  most  gigantic  system  of  good  roads, 
connecting  up  with  every  large  and  enterprising  city  of 

77 


Addresses  World* s  Social  Progress  Congress 

twevy  State,  in  such  a  way  that  a  family  can  travel  from 
one  corner  of  this  great  union  of  States  to  any  other  with 
the  same  comfort  and  convenience  as  in  any  up-to-date 
city. 

MINIMUM    OPPOSITION. 

There  will  be  a  minimum  of  opposition  to  the  growth 
of  the  Incorporated  Farm  movement,  for  its  beginnings 
are  the  same  as  those  of  other  corporations.  But  there 
is  an  opposition  by  even  good  and  great  people  to  every 
movement  having  for  its  purpose  the  advancement  of 
civilization,  because  those  in  high  places  are  always  sat- 
isfied with  present  conditions  which  render  them  tribute. 
Prejudice  and  selfish  interests  from  this  source  are  al- 
lowed to  obscure  the  horizon  of  truth. 

Martyrs  were  burned  for  enunciating  principles  which 
have  become  the  laws  of  every-day  Hfe.  Harvey  was 
ridiculed  and  punished  for  declaring  that  blood  circu- 
lated through  the  human  body.  Daniel  Webster  opposed 
steam  railroads  and  thought  them  an  absurdity.  When 
Cyrus  W.  Field  was  financing  the  building  of  the  trans- 
Atlantic  cable,  an  influential  journal  said  that  he  had  gone 
to  England  to  further  the  interests  of  his  favorite  enter- 
prise. ."Both  ends  of  the  cable  will  be  under  the  control 
of  England  and  no  American  is  a  real  friend  of  his  coun- 
try who  will  give  a  cent  to  help  England  acquire  such  a 
military  engine."  And  there  are  many  who  do  not  now 
believe  in  the  possible  perfection  of  the  airship  and  the 
aeroplane. 

HEALTH  AND  VIGOR. 

The  Incorporated  Farm  will  do  more  to  develop  health 
and  vigor  than  all  other  means  ever  conceived.  It  will 
afford  the  highest  privilege  of  becoming  real  citizens  in 
a  community  where  each  man  and  woman  can  do  a  part, 

78 


Social  Incorporation  and  Social  Progress 

for  the  glory  of  the  service  will  be  a  stimulant  never  be- 
fore felt. 

"The  progressive  civilization  of  the  last  hundred  years 
has  worked  terribly  against  the  health  and  perpetuity  of 
the  whole  race,"  said  Charles  WilHam  Eliot,  President 
Emeritus  of  Harvard  University,  before  the  International 
Congress  of  School  Hygiene  in  Buffalo,  August,  1913. 
''This  is  seen  in  the  reduced  vitahty  of  the  multitude 
that  inhabit  closely  built  cities,  in  the  diminished  size  of 
families,  in  the  incapacity  of  many  women  to  bear  and 
nurse  children,  in  the  disproportionate  increase  of  the  in- 
sane, defectives,  and  criminally  inclined.  Such  cities  as 
London,  Paris,  Berlin,  New  York,  and  Chicago  bear  wit- 
ness that  modern  civilization  is  all  the  time  operating  and 
promoting  its  own  destruction." 

PRESENT-DAY  ORGANIZATION. 

There  never  have  been  so  many  movements  organized 
to  help  the  farmer  as  at  present,  yet  the  cost  of  food 
products  goes  higher  and  higher.  The  mere  co-operative 
organization  of  farmers  has  not  proven  as  practical  as 
the  farmers  themselves  would  like.  The  Southern  Truck 
Growers'  Association  of  Texas,  the  largest  ever  organ- 
ized, is  going  into  dissolution  because  it  does  not  get  the 
support  necessary  for  its  success  from  the  farmers  them- 
selves, which  is  the  history  of  nearly  all  farmers'  co-oper- 
ative movements,  especially  when  it  comes  to  marketing. 

MARKETING   PROBLEM. 

The  methods  of  the  Incorporated  Farm  would  success- 
fully solve  the  marketing  problem,  for  it  would  in  the 
final  analysis  get  all  the  profits  from  the  products  it  put 
on  the  market. 

The  recent  appropriation  of  $50,000  by  the  Federal 
Government  to  investigate  marketing  plans  for  farmers, 

79 


Addresses  World's  Social  Progress  Congress 

followed  by  an  appropriation  of  $15,000  by  the  State  of 
Texas,  shows  there  is  a  keen  realization  of  one  of  the 
causes  of  the  high  cost  of  living,  as  well  as  a  desire  to  help 
farmers  with  their  greatest  problem.  Other  States  are 
giving  consideration  to  marketing  problems,  but  Texas 
is  the  first  to  make  an  appropriation,  and  has  passed  a 
law  making  cotton  warehouse  certificates  negotiable. 

The  farmer  can  produce  without  organization,  but  he 
cannot  successfully  market.  Organization  is  necessary  to 
deal  with  marketing  problems.  It  has  been  suggested 
that  the  Federal  Government  utilize  the  machinery  of  the 
National  Farmers'  Union,  claimed  by  some  to  be  the  most 
powerful  organization  in  the  Western  Hemisphere,  in 
the  carrying  out  of  any  marketing  plans.  This  union,  in 
national  convention  at  Salina,  Kansas,  in  September, 
1913,  advocated  a  central,  national  marketing  bureau  to 
bring  the  farmer  and  business  interests  closer  together 
for  their  mutual  benefit. 

The  farmer  cannot  be  helped  until  he  organizes,  and 
the  Federal  Government  cannot  help  the  farmer  excepting 
through  organization.  But  from  the  very  nature  of  or- 
ganization more  loosely  constructed,  there  cannot  be  full 
and  complete  co-operation  without  incorporation. 

This  truth  is  being  realized  now  that  the  mania  for 
organization  is  causing  a  confusion  of  effort  and  a  wast- 
ing of  energy.  The  stockholders  of  a  modern  industrial 
corporation  are  not  afflicted  with  these  ills. 

The  modern  industrial  corporation  is  the  only  organ- 
ization that  ever  successfully  solved  the  marketing  prob- 
lem. The  Federal  statutes  show  with  what  success  some 
of  the  big  industrial  corporations  have  marketed  their 
own  products.  These  statutes,  indeed,  prove  that  some  of 
these  corporations,  after  they  have  grown  to  the  stature 
of  trusts,  successfully  raised  the  price  of  their  commod- 

80 


Social  Incorporation  and  Social  Progress 

ities  beyond  the  endurance  of  the  people,  who  make  the 
laws,  but  such  laws  are  always  the  sufficient  guarantees 
of  the  people's  liberty.  No  corporation  will  ever  get  so 
big  that  the  people  will  not  be  big  enough  to  govern  it. 
And,  finally,  the  people  and  the  social  corporation,  which 
will  include  all  industry,  will  become  one  and  the, same. 

MERE    CO-OPERATION    TOO    LIMITED. 

A  lesson  learned  from  co-operation  among  farmers  is 
that  it  should  be  nation-large  before  it  can  be  perfected, 
so  that  the  farmer  may  secure  for  his  sales  what  the  con- 
sumer ultimately  pays.  It  would  be  impossible  to  de- 
velop and  maintain  such  extensive  co-operation  outside  of 
a  highly-developed  corporation. 

In  the  West,  farmers  and  fruit-growers  mostly  deal 
with  uniform  products,  like  wheat,  apples,  oranges,  grape- 
fruit, potatoes,  and  hay.  Big  buyers  do  not  care  to  con- 
sider small  offerings,  thus  giving  western  farmers  and 
fruit-growers  distinctive  advantages. 

Even  when  farmers  are  co-operating  for  marketing 
purposes,  the  representatives  of  the  co-operative  union 
work  at  a  disadvantage,  because  each  individual  is  pitted 
against  a  dozen  specialists.  Marketing  farm  produce  now 
is  just  where  marketing  manufactures  were  twenty  years 
ago,  when  sixty  per  cent  of  the  final  price  went  to  mar- 
keting expenses  and  wasteful  competition.  The  present 
manner  of  purchasing  supplies  for  the  farm  is  alike  waste- 
ful and  antiquated. 

middleman's  profits. 

The  problem  of  reasonably  marketing  farm  products,  is 
one  that  society  will  solve  within  the  next  twenty  years  to 
lessen  the  cost  of  living.  For  instance,  one  of  the  potato 
unions  near  New  York  City,  in  1913,  averaged  forty-four 

81 


Addresses  JV  or  Id's  Social  Progress  Congress 

cents  a  bushel  in  the  selhng  price.  Consumers  in  New 
York  City  paid  eighty  cents  to  one  dollar.  Here  is  a 
chance  to  reduce  the  cost  of  living,  and  at  the  same  time 
to  add  to  the  profits  of  the  farmer. 

The  canning  industry  is  progressing  by  rapid  stridcb. 
A  single  machine  can  now  turn  out  as  many  as  ninety 
thousand  cans  in  a  day.  We  now  think  of  canned  prod- 
ucts in  millions.  The  farmer  must  look  to  this  ever  in- 
creasing market.  The  Incorporated  Farm  derives  all  the 
profits  from  canning  its  own  products. 

HIGH   COST  OF  LIVING. 

The  management  of  successful  industrial  corporations 
is  much  more  efficient  than  that  of  civic  corporations. 
Civic  waste  is  responsible  for  much  of  the  high  cost  of 
living.  As  cities  grow,  the  cost  of  government  propor- 
tionate with  the  population  has  increased.  With  the  same 
economy  and  efficiency  noted  in  the  management  of  suc- 
cessful industrial  corporations,  it  would  decrease.  This 
principle  has  permitted  the  formation  of  the  very  largest 
of  all  industrial  corporations. 

In  the  United  States,  a  peace-loving  country,  about 
seventy-one  cents  out  of  every  dollar  of  tax  for  Federal 
Government  expense,  is  used  to  support  the  army  and 
navy.  The  proportion  of  tax  used  for  military  purposes 
by  European  governments,  before  the  outbreak  of  the 
present  great,  international  conflagration,  was  even 
greater,  with  Germany  at  the  top  of  the  list.  Many  peo- 
ple were  fleeing  from  Germany  before  the  present  war 
broke  out.  All  of  Europe  is  now  staggering  near"  the 
brink  of  bankruptcy.  But  industrial  necessities  will  event- 
ually put  an  end  to  all  wars. 

"The  primary  factor  in  the  rise  of  the  cost  of  living 
is  the  fall  in  the  purchasing  power  of  gold,  due  to  the 

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Social  Incorporation  and  Social  Progress 

excessive  and  growing  exactions  of  government/'  says 
Dr.  David  Starr  Jordan.  "A  nation  is  a  huge  corporation 
which  differs  from  other  corporations  in  its  power  to  levy 
assessments  without  limit  on  its  stockholders.  With  the 
financial  management  of  even  the  most  progressive  na- 
tions, no  industrial  corporation  could  escape  insolvency. 
The  rise  in  the  cost  of  articles  of  necessity  has  been  about 
fifty  per  cent  since  1897,  municipal  and  State  debts  are 
from  two  to  three  times  as  great,  and  the  increase  in  the 
world's  supply  of  gold  has  been  from  seven  and  one-half 
to  eleven  billion  dollars,  somewhat  lowering  its  buying 
power,  but  the  amount  of  gold  is  small  compared  with  the 
amount  of  credit  resting  upon  it,  and  population  also  in- 
creases. The  total  State  and  local  taxes  in  the  United 
States  increased  from  one  to  two  and  one-half  billion  dol- 
lars during  the  decade  from  1901  to  1911.  Instead  of 
living  beyond  our  means,  we  are  living  beyond  the  means 
of  the  fourth  generation.  There  is  certainly  dangerous 
portent  in  a  prosperity  that  rests  on  taxing  the  future. 
Taxation  lowers  the  purchasing  power  of  money.  Bonds 
will  be  paid  at  their  maturity  in  still  cheaper  dollars. 
Hence  the  fall  in  value  the  world  over  of  gild-edged 
bonds.  The  stress  and  incidence  of  taxation  falls  upon 
the  least  resistant  element.  As  production  is  more  or  less 
limited,  the  consumer  is  the  weakest  of  the  three  groups, 
producer,  dealer,  and  consumer,  and  finally  bears  most  of 
the  tax  burden,  but  in  any  case  an  increase  in  taxation  is 
a  burden  on  the  people,  and  they  can  only  shift  it  among 
themselves. 

FARMING  POPULATION  DECREASES. 

The  rural  population  of  the  United  States  has  increased 
only  nine  millions  in  twenty  years,  while  the  total  popula- 
tion has  increased  twenty-nine  millions.     But  the  rural 

83 


Addresses  World* s  Social  Progress  Congress 

population  of  England  and  Wales  has  been  declining,  not 
only  relatively,  but  actually,  in  every  decade  of  the  past 
half-century.  In  1851,  in  those  countries,  nearly  one- 
half  of  the  males  above  ten  years  of  age  w^ere  upon  the 
farms;  in  1910,  there  was  less  than  one-tenth.  With  a 
great  increase  in  total  population,  the  number  of  persons 
engaged  in  agriculture  has  decreased  in  a  half-century  by 
more  than  five  hundred  thousand,  or  thirty  per  cent. 

INCLUSIVE. 

Those  whose  limits  of  vision  coincide  with  mine,  see 
for  the  workers  in  the  Incorporated  Farm  movement,  a 
lifetime  of  interesting  and  remunerative  toil,  real  service 
to  fellow-men,  doubly  interesting  because  of  the  good  it 
will  do  in  putting  the  production  of  the  world's  food 
supply  on  the  highest  professional  and  business  plane, 
adding  to  the  profits  of  laborers,  and  increasing  the  vigor, 
the  health,  and  the  happiness  of  the  human  family. 

There  is  too  much  tendency  to  look  upon  country  life 
as  needing  the  amelioration  that  comes  from  charitable 
motives.  The  small  farmer,  the  poor  farmer,  and  their 
over-worked  wives  and  children,  do  not  wish  pity.  The 
independent  American  farmer  scorns  to  be  patronized. 
Through  the  processes  of  the  Incorporated  Farm,  with  its 
technical  training  school,  he  will  presently  hold  an  envi- 
able position,  coming  into  possession  of  what  is  right- 
fully his.  The  soil  will  give  him  the  same  superfine  cul- 
ture that  he  gives  the  soil. 

The  "sittlichkeit"  of  the  present  assures  the  most  rapid 
growth  for  the  Incorporated  Farm,  using  the  German 
expression  introduced  into  the  English  language  by  Lord 
Haldane. 

The  Incorporated  Farm  has  a  meaning  and  practical 
value  outside  of  the  realms  of  magniloquent  rhetoric.    It 

84 


Social  Incorporation  and  Social  Progress 

proposes  specific  propositions  affecting  the  intimate  con- 
cern of  immediate  industrial  and  social  life. 

Forward  to  the  land  is  a  worthy  and  necessary  move- 
ment, but  the  day  of  the  small  farm  is  passed,  for  the 
small  farm  is  not  economical.  Machinery  costs  too  much 
and  the  marketing  processes  are  too  expensive  and  dif- 
ficult. 

The  small  merchant,  then  the  large  one,  will  cast  his  lot 
with  the  students  of  the  Incorporated  Farm.  The  im- 
portant and  necessary  business  now  carried  on  by  the 
small  merchant,  will  continue  just  as  important  and  neces- 
sary, and  more  dignified,  as  a  part  of  the  great  co-oper- 
ative whole,  when  the  Incorporated  Farm  assumes  its 
functions.  The  Incorporated  Farm  management  will  dis- 
play the  same  modern  tactics  in  buying  in  wholesale  bulk, 
as  displayed  by  the  purchasing  agent  of  other  large  in- 
dustrial or  civic  corporations. 

But  the  middle  man  and  manufacturer  are  under  pres- 
ent conditions  as  much  producers  as  the  farmers  them- 
selves, for  a  thing  is  not  produced  until  it  is  delivered  to 
the  individual  who  wants  it,  at  the  time  he  wants  it,  in 
the  condition  he  wants  it,  for  the  purpose  he  wants  it. 
The  interests  of  the  merchant,  the  manufacturer,  and  the 
farmer  in  the  Social  Corporation  will  become  identical. 

''Business  in  its  evolution  has  passed  through  three 
stages,"  says  Professor  William  Hammond  Parker,  of 
the  University  of  Cincinnati,  "appropriation,  exploitation, 
and  production.  The  stage  of  appropriation  grew  out  of 
the  power,  physical  strength,  of  the  strong  cave  man,  over 
the  weak  cave  man,  and  extended  down  into  the  feudal 
ages,  when  the  feudal  lord  not  only  owned  the  land,  but 
his  vassals  as  well.  Slavery  was  in  this  stage,  and  it  was 
an  improvement  over  cannibalism  that  immediately  pre- 
ceded it.    With  the  invention  of  printing  and  the  bringing 

85 


Addresses  World's  Social  Progress  Congress 

of  gunpowder  from  the  Far  East,  the  former  making 
possible  the  dissemination  of  knowledge  previously  locked 
up  with  the  monks  in  the  cloisters,  and  the  latter  reducing 
the  physical  power  of  the  mail-coated  knight  to  an  equal- 
ity with  that  of  the  soft-handed  merchant,  appropriation 
gave  way  to  exploitation,  and  craftiness  was  substituted 
for  the  brute  force  of  the  mailed  hand.  That  exploitation 
of  labor,  of  natural  resources,  or  of  the  public,  is  rapidly 
passing  away,  is  shown  by  the  statutes  governing  rail- 
roads, banking,  insurance,  and  corporations  generally, 
protecting  the  natural  resources  of  the  States  and  Nation, 
the  forests,  the  water  power  of  the  rivers,  the  mines,  and 
public  franchises.  In  this  age  of  production,  the  ethical 
idea  is  becoming  more  and  more  dominant,  so  that  the 
very  principles  of  eternal  right  and  wrong,  which  govern 
a  man  in  his  home  and  in  his  church,  also  govern  him  in 
his  politics  and  in  his  business  activities.  Political  and 
civil  afifairs  will  become  more  and  more  largely  industrial. 
We  are  now  interested,  not  alone  in  the  questions  of  the 
rights  of  labor,  but  are  getting  interested  in  the  questions 
of  the  rights  of  the  man  who  employs  labor.  No  man 
can  again  convince  an  American  audience  that  his  busi- 
ness may  be  conducted  as  he  pleases  because  it  is  his  own, 
or  that  any  question  can  be  purely  a  business  or  purely  a 
political  question,  for  it  must  be  looked  at,  not  only  as 
an  economical  or  a  political  question,  but  as  an  ethical 
question  as  well.  Ethical  ideas  and  standards  change, 
else  there  would  be  no  progress.  What  was  right  for  my 
grandfather  is  not  right  for  me.  Truth  alone  is  immu- 
table, and  the  precept  of  the  Man  of  Galilee,  'Do  unto  oth- 
ers as  you  would  have  others  do  unto  you,'  is  the  perfect 
guide  for  all  human  actions.  We  are  coming  to  realize 
that  no  man  or  body  of  men  has  a  right  to  demand  of  their 
employer  that  which  they  are  not  willing  to  give  to  their 

36 


Social  Incorporation  and  Social  Progress 

employer;  to  demand  honesty  from  him  and  not  give  in 
return  absolute  honesty." 

The  day  laborer  will  become  the  stockholder  in  the  In- 
corporated Farm,  acquiring  with  an  independence  and 
competence,  the  education  that  will  enable  him  to  become 
a  more  dignified,  better  balanced,  and  useful  citizen.  It 
is  not  labor  that  detracts  from  dignity  and  social  worth, 
but  ignorance. 

The  salaried  man  who  uses  his  head  will  learn  the  value 
of  the  work  of  his  hands  and  be  blessed  in  that  he  may 
provide  a  home  for  his  family  and  leave  an  inheritance. 

Industrially,  the  greater  the  freedom  of  the  individual, 
the  more  wages  he  earns.  The  man  born  with  a  birth- 
right in  the  Incorporated  Farm,  will  be  freed  from  the 
terror  of  that  biting  poverty  which  paralyzes  so  many  of 
the  individual  man's  activities.  Nothing  approaching  so- 
cial perfection  can  be  reached  while  little  children  and 
widowed  mothers  are  ground  into  money  by  the  mills  of 
the  money  gods.  The  beauties  of  poverty  are  only  appar- 
ent when  voluntarily  assumed  by  the  matured  philosopher 
for  purely  asthetic  reasons. 

That  the  great  man  in  any  community  is  the  man  who 
renders  the  greatest  service,  will  be  realized  as  a  practical 
truth,  and  such  a  man  will  ever  live  longest  in  the  memory 
of  the  generation  which  follows. 

There  is  evolution  everywhere.  "Let  Thy  thought  be 
my  thought,  let  Thy  purpose  be  my  purpose,"  may  be  the 
loftiest  expression  of  prayer  addressed  to  Deity,  when  it 
is  understood  that  God  is  Supreme  Good,  and  may  be 
the  prayer  of  the  Jew  and  the  Gentile,  the  Oriental  and 
the  Occidental. 

The  Incorporated  Farm  as  the  social  corporation,  to 
use  the  words  of  the  immortal  Gladstone,  "will  help  to 
inspire  humanity  with  the  belief  that  life  is  a  great  and 

S7 


Addresses  World's  Social  Progress  Congress 

noble  calling — not  a  mean,  groveling  thing  that  we  are 
to  shuffle  through  as  we  can — but  an  elevated  and  lofty 
destiny." 

This  may  seem  an  effervescent  enthusiasm,  but  Emer- 
son said,  nothing  worth  while  has  ever  been  accomplished 
without  enthusiasm.  ''America  is  another  name  for  op- 
portunity. Our  whole  history  appears  like  a  last  effort  of 
the  Divine  Providence  in  behalf  of  the  human  race." 

"He  who  seeks  happiness  never  finds  it,"  a  philosopher 
said,  "but  he  who  does  his  duty,  finds  peace  and  happiness 
in  service."  Paraphrasing  Nelson  at  Trafalgar,  in  this 
republic,  every  man  is  expected  to  do  his  duty. 

"The  instant  you  are  content  with  progress,"  Herbert 
Kaufman  says,  "you  will  cease  to  progress."  "When  you 
rest  on  your  laurels,  you  have  chosen  a  poor  couch.  What 
you  were  yesterday  doesn't  interest  us  to-day.  We  want 
to  know  what  you  will  do  to-morrow." 
"It  is  the  final  conflict. 

Let  each  stand  in  his  place ; 
The  Brotherhood  of  Man 
Shall  be  the  human  race." 

WHAT  OTHERS  SAY. 

Champ  Clark,  Speaker  of  the  United  States  House  of 
Representatives:  "The  movement  seems  to  me  to  be  one 
in  the  right  direction." 

J.  C.  Corbett,  Assistant  Chief  of  Bureau  of  Plant  In- 
dustry, United  States  Department  of  Agriculture:  "I  am 
impressed  with  the  scope  of  the  scheme.  It  is  almost 
Utopian  in  its  conception  and  application.  It  would  un- 
doubtedly, if  it  could  be  carried  out,  solve  most  of  the 
problems  which  it  proposes  to  settle,  but  with  varying  in- 
terest and  abilities  of  the  parties  concerned,  I  am  unable 
to  conceive  of  how   such  an  ideal  adjustment   can  be 


Social  Incorporation  and  Social  Progress 

brought  about.  The  desires,  ambitions,  and  abiHties  of  in- 
dividuals vary  so  greatly,  there  is  such  a  wide  diversity 
of  financial  responsibilities  already  possessed  by  those 
who  might  participate  in  such  an  undertaking  that  I  can 
conceive  of  no  basis  of  equitable  distribution  of  their 
holdings  or  an  equitable  distribution  of  the  returns  from 
the  combined  enterprise.  In  communities  where  the  abil- 
ities, ambitions,  and  financial  responsibilities  are  more 
nearly  upon  a  parity  than  they  are  in  most  American  com- 
munities, it  would  be,  in  my  judgment,  easier  to  form 
such  a  combination  and  indeed  this  is,  to  a  certain  extent, 
proven  by  the  corporative  enterprises  involving  a  wide  di- 
versity of  activities  in  several  European  nations." 

Fiske  Warren,  of  Harvard  University  Faculty:  ''I  am 
much  in  sympathy  with  many  of  your  objects,  and  it 
would  be  stimulating  indeed  to  see  such  a  plan  as  yours 
succeed.  At  the  same  time  permit  me  to  express  a  doubt 
as  to  whether  you  are  not  trying  to  include  too  many 
things  under  the  control  of  a  single  corporation.  For 
instance,  to  my  mind,  it  is  hardly  conceivable  that  hap- 
piness will  result  when  a  man's  house  shall  be  built,  not 
by  himself,  but  by  a  corporation  in  which  he  himself  and 
all  others  living  on  the  land  shall  be  stockholders.  This 
criticism  applies  also  to  a  number  of  other  things  which 
the  corporation  is  intended  to  undertake,  but  which  to 
my  mind  are  better  undertaken  by  private  agencies  or  by 
co-operative  effort.  However,  until  I  see  some  plan  laid 
down  to  give  form  and  substance  to  your  interesting  ad- 
umbrations, I  perhaps  ought  not  to  go  far  with  criticisms, 
either  favorable  or  unfavorable,  for  I  apprehend  that  if 
there  is  anything  in  the  criticisms  I  might  make,  they 
would  be  apt  to  be  found  to  be  difficulties  which  you  your- 
self would  encounter  in  bringing  down  the  plan  to  prac- 
ticality." 

89 


Addresses  World's  Social  Progress  Congress 

Honorable  Charles  Nagel,  Former  Secretary  of  Labor : 
"It  is  entirely  possible  that  your  suggestions  may  solve 
part  of  the  problems.  If  your  proposition  involves  the 
active  participation  in  work  by  those  who  are  interested 
in  shares,  the  advantage  would  be  a  double  one,  because 
it  would  not  only  take  an  active  force  back  to  the  soil, 
but  your  plan  would  be  calculated  to  create  an  opportunity 
for  community  life,  the  lack  of  which  probably  constitutes 
one  of  the  greatest  deprivations  of  modern  farming." 

Mr.  Robert  John,  Secretary  of  the  Luther  Burbank 
Society :  "Your  plan  outlined  for  a  great  industrial  center 
of  which  intensive  agriculture  is  the  backbone,  is,  in  my 
mind,  quite  idealistic.  None  the  less,  it  is  a  first  step  to- 
ward an  accomplishment  which  will  do  more  for  this 
country  than  anything  that  has  been  offered — and  with 
which  I  am  familiar — for  the  betterment  of  the  condition 
of  the  working  classes." 

Honorable  Arthur  Capper,  Governor  of  Kansas,  and 
Editor  of  the  Capper  Publications :  "It  is  almost  too  large 
a  proposition  about  which  to  make  up  one's  mind  at  once. 
But  I  am  ready  to  say  that  it  presents  a  nobly  idealistic 
plan,  and  a  plan  that  ought  to  be  practical." 

Honorable  Josephus  Daniels,  Secretary  of  the  United 
States  Navy:  "I  am  deeply  concerned  over  the  depopu- 
lation of  rural  districts,  and  am  an  ardent  advocate  of  the 
'back-to-the-farm*  movement.  None  are  more  competent 
to  further  this  vital  cause  than  members  of  the  press." 

Dr.  Elmer  Gates,  Scientist,  Washington,  D.  C. :  "It 
seems  to  me  to  be  a  step  in  the  right  direction,  and  that 
something  of  the  kind  will  be  one  of  the  ground-floor 
planks  in  the  reconstructed  edifice  of  human  society.  I 
have  long  been  thinking  and  experimenting  along  the  lines 
the  results  of  which  should  not  be  neglected  by  those, 

90 


Social  Incorporation  and  Social  Progress 

who  like  yourself,  are  leaders  of  tendencies  destined  to 
culminate  in  epoch-making  results." 

Dr.  Frederik  Van  Eeden,  Walden,  Bussum,  N.  Holland, 
Author  of  'TIappy  Humanity,"  and  other  books :  ''I  be- 
lieve in  your  movement  and  anything  I  can  do  to  help  it, 
I  will  more  than  gladly  do.  Mr.  Hugh  Mac  Rae  will  be 
in  sympathy  with  your  work.  Do  you  know  the  pamphlet, 
'Constructive  Socialism,'  by  Mr.  Millar?  He  would  help 
you.  I  think  you  should  come  into  contact  with  Mr.  Up- 
ton Sinclair.  He  is  a  great  friend  of  mine  and  I  think 
he  will  be  glad  to  enter  into  a  discussion  of  your  scheme." 

W.  J.  Hoggson,  New  York  City,  Industrial  Leader : 
"The  matter  is  extremely  interesting  to  me  and  I  will  do 
everything  in  my  power  to  push  along  the  great  work 
which  this  country  needs — some  plan  to  apply  business 
methods  to  farming.  If  you  have  not  in  your  club  library 
a  book  entitled  'Happy  Humanity,'  written  by  Dr.  Fred- 
erik Van  Eeden,  to  which  is  appended  a  plan  which  I 
worked  out  with  Doctor  Van  Eeden  for  an  incorporated 
farm  community,  I  should  be  glad  to  send  you  a  copy." 


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Chapter  VII. 
THE  FAMILY  AND  SOCIAL  PROGRESS. 

BY  WILLIAM  FORD  NICHOLS. 

In  boxing  the  compass,  the  four  cardinal  points  are 
combined  for  all  of  the  bearings  of  the  whole  circle.  We 
have  not  only  north,  south,  east,  and  west,  but  the  old 
mariner,  in  boxing  the  compass,  includes  north  by  east, 
north  northeast,  and  so  on.  So  that  the  four  points  them- 
selves furnish  the  whole  round  of  the  compass.  The  com- 
mittee which  has  arranged  these  twenty-one  different 
talks,  have  followed  President  Lincoln's  advice  in  block- 
ing out  the  subjects  under  the  one  head  of  social  prog- 
ress; and  when  I  approach  the  particular  topic  assigned 
to  me,  "The  Family  and  Social  Progress,"  the  reahzation 
that  this  subject  has  already  been  so  thoroughly  covered, 
both  simplifies  and  supplements  what  I  am  able  to  say 
on  that  subject. 

It  simplifies  it  because  there  are  a  good  many  technical 
students  who  have  written  books.  I,  of  course,  have  to 
speak  in  an  untechnical  way  without  any  system  of  anal- 
ysis or  synthesis,  and  only  just  as  a  family  man,  a  family 
man  who  owes  all  that  he  is  pretty  much  to  a  good  father 
and  mother,  and  who,  therefore,  has  a  tradition  of  what 
family  life  did  for  him ;  and  as  a  family  man  who  is  the 
least  member  of  a  household,  the  mother  of  which  has 
shaped  that  family  so  that  the  happiest  thing  on  this  earth 
for  him  is  the  family  Hfe  around  his  own  hearthstone. 
And  these  are  the  only  qualifications  that  I  have  to  speak 
upon  the  family ;  from  the  memories  of  dear  ones  gone, 
who  have  left  me  the  most  precious  memories  in  life, 

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The  Family  and  Social  Progress 

and  the  experience  to-day  of  family  life.  I  may  say  that 
the  old  aspiration  was  that  a  family  should  have  a  quiver 
full.  The  student  will  tell  you  that  the  old  quiver  held 
five  arrows,  and  therefore,  as  the  father  of  five  children, 
and  the  grandfather  of  ten  grandchildren,  five  boys  and 
five  girls,  you  must  grant  that  I  have  the  quiver  full,  and 
that  is  my  only  qualification  to  treat  upon  this  matter. 

One  of  the  most  careful  students  of  the  family  was 
the  late  Dr.  Samuel  Dyke,  of  New  England,  whom  I  used 
to  know  a  good  many  years  ago.  So  far  as  family  perils 
are  concerned,  he  was  possibly,  at  the  time  of  his  death, 
the  best  informed  man  in  New  England,  and  in  a  resume 
of  his  work,  he  once  said,  "You  can  no  more  study  social 
science  without  studying  the  family,  than  you  can  study 
biological  science  without  studying  the  cell."  The  family 
is  the  first  society ;  the  family  is  the  smallest  social  unit ; 
the  family  is  the  cell  for  all  that  area  of  social  expression, 
I  take  it,  which  comes  under  the  survey  of  the  distin- 
guished speakers  in  this  congress.  You  can  see  what  a 
support  it  is  to  feel  that  somebody  else  has  covered  nearly 
all  the  points,  and  that  I  can  browse  around  and  ramble 
around  freely,  feeling  that  if  I  leave  anything  unsaid,  it 
has  already  been  better  said  by  somebody  else.  But  I 
feel  that  my  topic  is  the  biggest  topic  in  the  whole  twenty- 
one,  because  it  concerns  that  which  is  the  basis,  the  unit, 
of  all  society. 

Now,  at  the  beginning  I  spoke  of  the  four  cardinal 
points  of  the  compass.  There  are  also  four  cardinal 
points  in  the  family.  The  first  is  marriage,  the  next  is 
parenthood,  the  next  is  childhood,  and  the  fourth  is 
brother-  and  sisterhood.  Those  are  the  four  cardinal 
points  of  the  family,  and  like  the  four  cardinal  points  of 
the  compass,  we  can  use  them  in  boxing  the  whole  com- 
pass of  society,  studied  as  a  science.    You  have  to  have 

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Addresses  World's  Social  Progress  Congress 

these  four  points,  unless  I  am  very  much  mistaken,  as  the 
basis  of  any  true  social  vision,  and  those  are  the  various 
angles  of  the  social  science,  of  the  socius.  The  family 
gives  us  the  four  dimensions  of  companionship.  The 
first  dimension  of  marriage  and  loyalty;  the  second  di- 
mension of  parenthood  and  duty;  the  third  in  privilege, 
and  the  fourth  in  fellowship.  Each  one  of  these  four  car- 
dinal points  of  the  family  emphasizes  one  of  these  four 
necessary  things  to  any  social  progress.  Marriage  em- 
phasizes loyalty ;  parenthood  emphasizes  duty ;  childhood, 
privilege,  and  brother-  and  sisterhood,  fellowship.  Of 
course  these  four  dimensions  are  all  in  the  totality  of 
the  subject,  and  while  I  say  they  emphasize  these  points, 
each  one  partakes  of  the  ideal  of  all  the  rest.  The  empha- 
sis does  not  e:5cclude,  but  includes  the  others. 

Now,  let  us  take  loyalty.  Those  of  you  who  have  fol- 
lowed Professor  Royce's  book  on  the  problem  of  Christi- 
anity, will  remember  in  what  an  up-to-date  manner  he 
deals  with  what  he  calls  lo3^alty  to  the  universal  loyalty ; 
and  he  defines  loyalty  as  a  practically  devoted  love  of  the 
community.  Now,  isn't  that,  in  philosophic  terms,  just 
the  definition  of  good  old  mothering  and  fathering,  a 
practical,  every-day,  not  argued,  but  acted  life  in  com- 
munity? Of  course,  I  am  taking  Professor  Royce's  idea 
out  of  the  text,  because  he  is  dealing  with  Christianity  as 
a  universal  loyalty ;  but  I  want  to  adopt  his  phrase,  which 
is  "the  beloved  community,"  and  the  happy  husband  and 
wife  forms  the  most  beloved  community  on  earth.  There 
is  the  loyalty  of  wife  to  husband,  and  of  husband  to  wife, 
and  that  is  the  ideal  that  must  permeate  a  true,  funda- 
mental notion  of  social  progress. 

How  completely  that  is  brought  out  in  our  poetry,  in  all 
our  high  ideals  of  what  happiness  in  life  is.  We  remem- 
ber Hawthorne's  fire  worshipers  in  his  econium  of  the 

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The  Family  and  Social  Progress 

fireplace.  He  says  we  can  understand  the  old-fashioned 
tocsin,  'Tight  for  your  altars  and  your  fires"  ;  but  who  un- 
der heaven  could  ever  start  up  any  war  cry  for  the  sake  of 
our  registers  and  stoves? 

Think  of  Whittier's  "Snowbound";  how  he  depicts  the 
clean  hearth  and  the  crackle  of  the  blaze,  shut  in  by  the 
storm,  and  the  dear  home  faces  lighted  by  the  fitful  glow. 
Isn't  the  loyalty  to  the  beloved  community  of  the  family 
the  secret  of  it  all  ? 

So,  if  we  expand  the  idea  of  the  loyalty  of  two,  to  the 
community;  the  loyalty  of  the  hearthstone  and  the  fam- 
ily, and  carry  it  out  to  the  widest  extent  of  human  associ- 
ation, isn't  loyalty  a  fundamental  contribution  of  the  fam- 
ily to  the  whole  question  ? 

Parenthood  is  the  next  cardinal  point,  and  that  involves 
duty.  As  we  remember  our  fathers  and  mothers,  it 
seemed  to  be  taken  for  granted  that  they  would  do  their 
duty.  The  Bible  says,  "Fathers,  provoke  not  your  chil- 
dren to  wrath."  You  don't  need  to  admonish  mothers ; 
they  are  more  apt  to  have  to  keep  the  children  from  pro- 
voking the  fathers  to  wrath.  But  the  admonition  of  the 
Bible  represents  a  duty.  Much  illustration  is  not  neces- 
sary, but  here  is  one  example.  Oftentimes  the  father  is 
the  first  one  to  realize  that  when  there  is  a  new  child, 
there  is  also  a  new  will.  I  have  a  picture  of  one  of  my 
children,  standing  on  the  steps,  that  somebody  caught  just 
as  I  had  told  the  little  child  to  do  something,  and  she  saia, 
*T  won't" ;  and  I  have  that  picture  of  her  Httle  back  aii 
full  of  "1  won't."  That  is  one  of  the  discoveries  that  a 
father  makes  about  his  child.  It  is  a  revelation  to  him  of 
one  of  the  profoundest  duties  that  God  has  laid  upon  him 
as  a  parent ;  to  deal  with  that  little  will.  It  won't  take 
care  of  itself,  it  is  the  father's  responsibility.  Of  course 
he  cannot  suppress  that  will,  it  is  his  duty  to  develop  it, 

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Addresses  World's  Social  Progress  Congress 

and  that  is  illustrative  of  a  great  many  of  the  duties  of 
parenthood.     It  stands  for  responsibility. 

The  third  cardinal  point  is  childhood.  Just  as  parent- 
hood emphasizes  responsibility,  childhood  emphasizes 
privilege.  God  knows  there  is  also  privilege  in  parent- 
hood and  the  child  has  plenty  of  duties ;  but  in  the  family 
the  child  stands  for  privilege.  The  child  is  a  privileged 
being,  brought  up  in  a  true  nurture  and  admonition,  and 
woe  betide  the  parent  who  does  not  recognize  the  priv- 
ilege of  the  child  to  be  dealt  with  in  the  fairest  possible 
way.  One  of  my  old  friends  was  once  visiting  a  clergy- 
man. The  clergyman  and  his  wife  were  going  some- 
where, and  their  child,  sitting  on  my  friend's  knee,  said, 
"There  go  the  two  biggest  liars  in  this  town."  Startled, 
my  friend  asked,  "What  do  you  mean?''  The  child 
said,  "Oh,  they  have  told  me  for  the  last  two  years  that 
the  next  time  they  took  a  buggy  ride  they  would  take  me, 
and  they  have  never  done  it  yet."  It  is  one  of  the  priv- 
ileges of  the  child  to  be  truthfully  dealt  with.  And  in 
society  at  large,  every  element  must  have  its  proper  priv- 
ileges, its  right  to  opportunity,  recognized. 

The  fourth  cardinal  point  is  fellowship ;  the  brother 
and  the  sister.  It  means  reciprocity,  mutual  forbearance, 
mutual  regard ;  it  is  the  epitomy  of  fellowship  all  through 
the  community. 

These  four  things  which  belong  to  the  family  seem  to 
me  to  be  the  family's  contribution  to  social  progress ;  loy- 
alty to  high  ideals,  a  sense  of  duty,  a  realization  of  priv- 
ilege, and  fellowship. 

What  are  some  of  the  things  that  attack  these  ideals 
in  the  family?  Well,  of  course,  divorce  courts  break  up 
the  bond  of  loyalty ;  that  lack  of  altruism  which  Spencer 
defines  for  us,  which  is  action  for  the  benefit  of  another, 
rather  than  action  for  the  benefit  of  one's  self.    The  lack 

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The  Family  and  Social  Progress 

of  that,  just  pure  selfishness,  does  not  always  bring  fam- 
ilies to  the  divorce  court,  but  it  strikes  at  the  family. 

What  strikes  at  duty  ?  Well,  a  great  many  things.  One 
thing  is  the  capitalization  of  the  child  in  the  home.  It  is 
not  merely  the  poor  fathers  and  mothers  who  earn  their 
daily  bread  who  have  to  capitalize  everything  to  make 
ends  meet,  who  do  this.  The  child  may  be  capitalized  for 
the  sake  of  a  sort  of  priggishness ;  it  may  be  regarded  as 
a  sort  of  a  credential  of  pride.  We  like  to  say,  "This  is 
my  boy;  he  has  taken  all  the  prizes  at  school,  and  he  is 
mine."  We  think,  'T  have  got  an  automobile,  and  I  have 
got  that  boy,  and  I  am  a  good  deal  of  a  fellow."  The 
child  may  be  brought  out  to  be  exhibited  to  satisfy  her 
parents'  vanity.  There  is,  of  course,  a  just  pride;  but 
not  when  it  spoils  the  child  and  makes  a  prig  of  him. 

Then  there  is  the  character  incubator  process ;  letting  a 
mechanical  process  do  for  the  child  what  the  mother  and 
father  ought  to  do.  We  have  all  heard  the  story  of  the 
man  who  went  into  a  Nevada  mining  town  and  saw  the 
sign  over  what  he  supposed  was  a  saloon,  "No  mother 
here,"  and  he  was  terribly  shocked.  But  an  old  miner 
explained  that  that  wasn't  a  saloon ;  it  was  a  place  where 
they  sold  incubators.  We  have  the  incubator  habit  when 
we  turn  off  on  the  school  the  things  that  should  be  done 
at  home.  We  have  too  often  given  up  the  Sunday  after- 
noon story,  the  privilege  of  the  child  to  have  the  mother's 
training. 

Then  there  is  that  which  attacks  the  sense  of  fellowship 
in  the  family;  when  brother  and  sister  are  both  looking 
out  for  number  one  instead  of  the  other  person.  It  is 
the  spirit  of  the  fuss-maker.  In  my  early  ministry  I  had 
a  good,  old  neighbor  who  didn't  see  eye  to  eye  with  me 
on  anything  theologically,  but  we  used  to  spend  interest- 
ing evenings  together;  and  he  had  on  his  wall  two  mot- 

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Addresses  World* s  Social  Progress  Congress 

toes,  worked  in  worsted.  One  was  the  familiar  text, 
''Blessed  are  the  peacemakers";  but  the  other  was  his 
own,  "Cursed  are  the  fuss-makers."  When  the  brothers 
and  sisters  are  all  the  time  making  a  fuss  in  the  home  be- 
cause they  don't  get  their  rights,  then  trouble  begins,  and 
the  spirit  of  fellowship  is  destroyed. 

I  have  mentioned  some  of  the  things  that  attack  the 
four  cardinal  points;  loyalty  by  all  sorts  of  disloyalty; 
privilege  by  being  misconstrued,  and  fellowship  by  the 
fuss-maker.  Widen  out  those  four  points  as  the  family 
must  be  widened  out  to  make  society  and  see  how  the 
analogy  fits.  These  four  vices  are  what  we  are  contend- 
ing with  to-day  as  the  obstacles  to  social  progress.  We 
must  have  loyalty  to  high  idealism.  We  have  seen  how 
Carl  Marx  stood  out  and  sacrificed  a  great  deal  for  the 
sake  of  loyalty  to  his  ideals,  and  we  must  admire  him  for 
that  even  if  we  do  not  agree  with  him.  We  have  it  to- 
day interpreted  in  the  trenches  of  the  great  war  and  in 
the  heartaches  left  in  the  homes  of  the  soldiers.  We  have 
splendid  examples  of  loyalty  in  the  hospitals  and  on  the 
field,  and  also  in  our  own  homes  and  in  examples  of 
social  service  that  may  represent  as  much  sacrifice  as 
going  to  the  front. 

The  sense  of  privilege  is  developed  when  we  realize 
that  it  is  a  privilege  to  help  our  fellow-men ;  that  privilege 
is  a  clear  call  to  our  best  manhood  and  womanhood.  I 
think  the  family  has  contributed  to  social  progress  an 
idea  of  loyalty,  of  duty,  of  fellowship  that  calls  for  our 
best  efforts  and  is  a  challenge  to  every  man  and  woman 
to  be  up  and  stirring.  We  hear  the  noisy  minority,  but 
we  don't  always  hear  the  great  body  of  people  quietly 
doing  their  work.  Think  of  all  your  friends,  of  the  happy 
families,  of  all  those  who  are  doing  their  duty  in  that  state 
of  life  to  which  it  has  pleased  God  to  call  them.     Think 


The  Family  and  Social  Progress 

of  all  those  who  are  feeling  the  privilege  of  living  in  this 
twentieth  century.  "The  shallows  murmur,  while  the 
deeps  are  dark."  I  hope  we  shall  sometime  have  a  paper 
that  will  print  headlines  in  the  morning,  saying,  "Forty 
thousand  families  were  happy  yesterday."  "Ten  thousand 
bankers  were  honest  yesterday."  "Any  number  of  per- 
sons were  trying  to  teach  the  pure  gospel  of  Christ  Sun- 
day." It  is  time  we  give  the  innings  to  the  people  who 
are  doing  their  duty,  and  not  to  the  minority  who  are 
making  the  noise.  We  have  every  reason  for  hope  and 
ambition. 

Now,  my  thesis  has  amounted  to  this.  I  believe  the 
family  lies  at  the  root  of  all  social  progress;  just  as  man 
is  the  architype  of  the  animal  kingdom,  so  the  family  is 
of  the  social  scheme.  I  believe  that  in  the  family  we  need, 
in  these  days,  to  be  very  careful  to  preserve  these  four 
cardinal  points  of  loyalty,  duty,  privileges,  and  fellow- 
ship; all  four.  And  it  seems  to  me  that  it  is  just  here 
that  the  family  ideal  will  help  in  the  social  ideal.  There 
are  great  federations  for  self-interest,  as  well  as  for  serv- 
ice. Federation  for  self-interest  shows  itself  in  the  labor 
unions,  and  that  is  legitimate.  The  federation  for  serv- 
ice shows  itself  in  organization  like  the  Red  Cross.  But 
the  federation  for  fellowship,  for  which  the  family  stands, 
is  beyond  them  both.  We  are  thankful  for  what  we  have 
done,  but  we  want  to  go  yet  farther ;  we  want  to  have  all 
four  qualities  dominant.     What  would  that  imply? 

We  have  what  is  called  socialism;  that  may  involve 
three  of  them.  In  many  honest  hearts  it  does.  It  has  a 
right  to  organize  for  self-interest;  downtrodden  people 
ought  to  have  their  rights.  Of  course  they  should  or- 
ganize for  service,  as  Marx  and  others  have  taught.  But 
what  the  family  says  is  that  now  as  you  organize  for  self- 
interest  and  for  service,  there  is  also  a  higher  kinship, 

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Addresses  World's  Social  Progress  Congress 

and  that  is  this  relationship  for  which  the  family  stands. 
When  we  interpret  that  into  our  high  idealism,  we  speak 
of  the  Fatherhood  of  God  and  the  brotherhood  of  man. 
If  we  think  only  of  the  brotherhood  of  man,  it  may  be  in 
terms  of  self-interest  or  of  service;  but  when  we  bring 
in  the  higher  idealism,  fatherhood,  then  we  come  to  the 
idea  of  one  blood  in  all  races  and  nations  in  the  earth. 
It  is  the  widened  instinct ;  and  it  seems  to  me  that  there 
is  a  lack  just  there  of  a  dimension  which  we  need  to 
stress.  In  socialism,  derived  from  the  idea  of  the  socius 
we  may  have  a  great  ideal ;  but  we  need  also  filialism, 
from  the  word  "filius" ;  that,  it  seems  to  me,  is  what  the 
world  needs  to-day.  Are  we  losing  the  filial  relation? 
Does  the  social  program  involve  the  breaking  of  family 
ties?  We  see  examples  of  it  on  every  side.  I  have  read 
of  an  old  mother  of  eighty-seven  who  had  to  sue  her  son 
for  support,  and  another  of  eighty,  forced  to  apply  to  the 
court  for  relief  because  of  the  indifference  of  the  son. 
We  have  heard  of  old  fathers  and  mothers  put  into  the 
cheerless  hall  bedroom.  Is  the  filial  instinct  lessening? 
The  sense  of  reverence  in  the  child  needs  to  be  empha- 
sized, the  sense  of  obligation  for  the  father  or  mother.  I 
can  only  touch  upon  this;  but  just  as  there  is  a  sense  in 
the  family  for  a  need  for  filial  responsibiHty,  to  round  out 
the  family  life,  so  socialism  needs  this  element  to  give 
perfect  form  to  the  whole  vision.  We  need  to  rally 
around  this  new  word,  '"filialism,"  as  the  supplement  of 
sociaHsm.  We  must  think  not  only  of  the  brotherhood 
of  man,  but  also  of  the  filiaHsm  of  man,  and  the  Sermon 
on  the  Mount  indicates  what  the  children  of  the  Heavenly 
Father  should  do.  We  are  getting  one-sided.  Economic 
questions  are  not  the  only  questions  in  civilization.  We 
must  be  filialists  rather  than  socialists. 

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The  Family  and  Social  Progress 

So,  from  the  family  we  get  the  vision  of  social  prog- 
ress; and  these  ideals,  just  because  we  are  living  in  such 
strenuous  times,  need  all  the  more  attention.  I  used  the 
figure  of  the  compass ;  on  the  great  liner  almost  every- 
thing is  changed  since  the  days  of  the  Mayflower,  except 
the  compass,  this  one  thing  which  has  to  be  watched  more 
carefully  than  it  was  three  hundred  years  ago  because  of 
the  complicated  iron  and  steel  and  machinery  which  may 
make  that  little  needle  swerve.  You  will  find  on  the 
great  ships,  three  compasses  that  must  be  consulted,  one 
to  rectify  another.  And  so  the  very  complexity  of  mod- 
ern life  has  made  it  necessary  to  guard  all  the  more  care- 
fully the  one  thing  by  which  it  must  be  guided.  So  it  is 
with  the  family  and  its  ideals,  and  the  contributions  which 
the  family  makes  to  social  progress ;  we  must  watch  and 
guard  them. 

The  fleur-de-lis  which  you  see  on  every  compass,  was 
originally,  we  are  told,  a  cross.  Let  us  take  the  cross,  as 
a  symbol  of  sacrifice.  Just  as  the  old  compass  needle 
pointed  to  the  cross,  so  now  in  the  fundamental  thought 
of  the  twentieth  century,  must  be  the  realization  that, 
whether  in  the  family  or  in  society,  for  the  highest  devel- 
opment, there  must  be  sacrifice. 


101 


Chapter  VIII. 

THE  MOVEMENT  FOR  PEACE  AND  SOCIAL 
PROGRESS. 

BY  DAVID  STARR  JORDAN. 

Bishop  Bell,  Ladies,  and  Gentlemen  :  I  want  to 
talk  to  you  especially  of  what  men  are  planning  to  do 
after  this  war  is  over.  The  war  is  plainly  enough  the 
direct  result  of  rival  military  establishments;  it  is  the 
result  of  preparedness  for  war;  the  result  of  having 
thirty  thousand  officers,  more  or  less,  in  each  of  the  great 
nations  constantly  on  their  toes,  ready  to  jump,  constantly 
thinking  about  nothing  else  but  war;  constantly  devising 
schemes  for  pushing  the  nations  to  their  ruin. 

There  is  now  the  greatest  crisis  in  the  history  of  the 
world  since  the  Reformation,  and  this  crisis  has  very  much 
in  common  with  that.  You  may  remember  that  in  the 
time  of  the  Reformation,  the  great  financial  establishments 
of  that  day  got  hold  of  the  machinery  of  a  great  church, 
and  proposed  to  use  it  for  the  robbery  of  the  people  in 
the  name  of  religion.  Now  we  have  similar,  great  estab- 
lishments carrying  on  similar  rivalries  and  robberies  in 
the  name  of  national  defense.  Before  this  war  began, 
the  nations  were  spending  ten  million  dollars  a  day  in  in- 
surance against  war ;  ten  million  dollars  a  day  in  the  sa- 
cred name  of  peace,  but  expended  in  measures  for  bring- 
ing on  war,  and,  sooner  or  later,  war  was  necessarily  the 
result.  As  you  might  say,  it  was  like  two  express  trains 
running  on  converging  tracks,  and  the  only  thing  that  was 
being  done  to  insure  against  wrecks  at  the  point  of  con- 

102 


The  Movement  for  Peace  and  Social  Progress 

vergence  was  for  both  to  put  on  all  steam  in  the  hope  of 
reaching  the  junction  first. 

Since  1908,  when  the  Austrians  took  possession  of 
Bosnia,  we  have  had  what  the  British  call  a  "dry  war" ; 
what  was  practically  war  was  going  on,  but  no  blood  was 
shed ;  everybody  was  ready,  but  nobody  was  actually  kill- 
ing anybody.  On  the  first  of  August,  with  the  ultimatum 
on  Servia,  this  "dry  war"  changed  into  a  "red  war,"  a  war 
of  blood.  And  behind  all  this  was  also  the  sinister  influ- 
ence of  the  great  firms  that  furnish  ten  milHon  dollars  a 
day  in  ammunition  and  arms  to  the  nations,  and  which 
make  a  clear  profit  of  something  like  a  million  dollars, 
just  as  the  great  establishments  in  the  time  of  the  Refor- 
mation made  money  out  of  the  corruption  that  was  then 
going  on. 

Then  behind  all  this  again  was  the  exploitation  of 
China,  of  Turkey,  of  Africa,  where  men  invested  their 
money  because  they  could  make  more  profit  than  at  home. 
They  make  more  because  these  countries  have  gold  and 
silver  and  diamonds  and  oil  and  copra  and  other  things 
which  are  valuable  in  Europe,  but  not  .so  much  so  at 
home.  They  went  into  these  countries,  too,  because  you 
could  get  labor  there  for  almost  nothing,  while  labor  in 
Europe  was  dear;  these  men  could  get  labor  for  almost 
less  than  nothing  by  the  judicious  use  of  force.  So  we 
had  "red  rubber,"  rubber  mixed  with  blood,  from  the 
Congo.  Practical  slavery  exists  wherever  there  is  exploi- 
tation on  a  large  scale.  With  this  goes  the  building  up  of 
banks  and  railroads.  Both  of  these  are  very  useful  to  the 
people  exploited;  there  is  nothing  wrong  in  exploitation 
unless  it  is  wrong;  unless  it  is  accompanied  by  crime, 
and  unfortunately  a  great  deal  of  it  has  been  accompaniea 
by  crime.  It  has  been  the  habit  in  Europe  to  say  that 
wherever  a  man  from  any  country  goes,  the  diplomacy 

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Addresses  World's  Social  Progress  Congress 

of  his  country  goes  with  him.  If  a  man  is  in  the  *'red 
rubber"  business,  his  diplomacy  goes  with  him,  whether 
he  is  German  or  French  or  EngHsh.  But  it  is  very  weak 
unless  it  wears  brass  knuckles,  unless  you  have  a  navy  or 
an  army  to  demonstrate  with  and  back  up  the  exploiter, 
or  invade  the  interior,  when  the  people  rise  in  revolt. 

A  "sphere  of  influence,"  for  instance,  always  means 
rascality;  they  often  interfere  and  overlap,  and  produce 
tremendous  rivalry  and  trade  war.  This  has  been  called 
by  the  French  "la  course  vers  I'abime,"  the  road  to  the 
abyss.  All  of  us  have  been  able  to  see  for  the  last  six 
years  that  unless  this  sort  of  thing  stopped,  unless  the 
increase  of  the  navy,  and  conscriptions  stopped,  we  were 
going  to  take  the  most  awful  punishment,  we  were  in- 
viting the  most  awful  catastrophe  that  the  world  has 
ever  seen.  We  have  depended  on  finances  to  stop  it  be- 
cause it  meant  the  ruin  of  all  the  corporations.  We  have 
depended  on  industry  to  prevent  it,  and  the  working  men 
.were  all  against  it;  but  every  war  carries  with  it  such 
an  atmosphere  of  lies  and  hatred  that  it  has  affected  the 
common  men  in  every  country  on  earth,  until  they  cannot 
see  straight.  After  a  country  goes  into  war — and  this  is 
true  even  of  Great  Britain,  which  has  always  been  a  level- 
headed country — the  atmosphere  of  lies  and  hatred  is  such 
that  the  people  are  confused.  It  acts  just  as  it  did  with  us 
in  our  infamous  war  against  Spain.  We  could  have  set- 
tled that  whole  matter  without  the  loss  of  a  single  man 
if  we  had  only  allowed  our  minister  in  Madrid  to  continue 
the  negotiations  and  settle  the  matter.  When  any  war  is 
once  on,  as  Elihu  Root  said,  there  is  no  question  so  trivial 
that  nations  will  not  fight  over  it  if  they  want  to  fight, 
and  no  question  so  great  that  nations  will  not  settle  it 
if  they  want  to  do  what  is  right  and  proper. 

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The  Movement  for  Peace  and  Social  Progress 

There  are  no  causes  behind  this  war  except  the  long 
rivalry  of  rich  exploiters.  It  has  been  a  war  of  steel  and 
gold ;  an  attempt  to  frighten  competitors  so  that  they  will 
shrink  back ;  the  attempt  of  rival  nations  to  protect  their 
adventurers. 

All  of  the  nations  are  guilty;  the  one  best  prepared 
strikes  first.  The  one  with  the  longest  arm  is  guilty  of 
raking  in  most  of  the  wealth  of  other  nations.  The  whole 
thing  is  wrong.  A  nation  has  no  right  to  protect  its  ad- 
venturers when  they  are  engaged  in  crooked  business. 
Either  the  nation  must  say  that  it  will  not  protect  these 
adventurers  at  all,  they  must  take  their  chances,  or  else 
it  must  say  that  these  men  must  be  engaged  in  honest 
business ;  they  must  have  an  open  sheet  of  sales,  and  con- 
duct their  business  so  that  it  will  stand  inspection.  The 
railroads  in  Mexico  are  examples  of  this;  anybody  can 
buy  into  them.  The  illicit  cases  in  Mexico  belong  for  the 
most  part  to  business  of  an  irregular  kind. 

When  this  war  is  over,  it  will  not  have  settled  anything ; 
no  war  does.  Our  great  war  in  the  United  States  didn't 
settle  the  question  of  union  or  slavery.  Those  questions 
were  settled  by  the  obvious  fact  that  there  was  no  room 
in  the  United  States  for  rival  republics ;  and  slavery  was 
doomed  from  the  very  beginning.  It  was  settled  in  the 
human  mind.  The  fact  that  one  side  starves  out  the 
other ;  the  fact  even  that  one  side  is  beaten  and  the  other 
victorious  didn't  settle  anything;  these  questions  are  not 
settled  until  they  are  settled  right,  outside  of  war,  I 
don't  believe  this  war  will  settle  anything  at  all.  A  war 
against  militarism  by  militarism  can  only  result  in  a  vic- 
tory for  militarism.  Militarism  consists  of  a  disposition 
to  say,  "We  don't  care  for  fair  play ;  we  want  whatever 
we  can  get."  It  depends  upon  the  spirit  of  the  people, 
whether  they   are  willing  to  treat  other  people   fairly, 

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Addresses  World's  Social  Progress  Congress 

whether  they  are  willing  to  look  folks  in  the  face,  or 
whether  they  prefer  to  depend  upon  the  navy  for  their 
"punch,"  or  whether  they  regard  the  navy  as  the  instru- 
ment of  liberty  in  the  hands  of  a  free  people.  The  time 
must  come  when  all  the  armies  of  the  world  will  become 
police  armies.  The  difference  between  the  army  and  the 
police  is  that  a  soldier  knows  no  law  except  the  orders  of 
his  commanding  officer;  the  policeman  is  subject  to  the 
law  like  any  one  else,  and  is  just  as  likely  to  be  punished 
as  any  other  delinquent  if  he  breaks  it,  while  every  law 
on  earth  or  in  heaven  is  broken  by  the  soldier  every  day. 
No  war  can  be  righteous ;  it  may  be  inevitable  or  neces- 
sary, but  not  righteous,  because  the  first  act  in  it  is  mur- 
der, and  the  next  robbery.  Each  war  is  directed  chiefly 
against  women  and  children.  The  soldiers  are  protected ; 
they  are  given  every  help  in  the  way  of  medical  service 
and  nurses  and  food ;  but  the  women  and  children  in  time 
of  war  have  no  shelter  whatever.  If  they  get  on  the  firing 
line,  they  are  of  no  more  importance  than  jack  rabbits. 
One  thing  that  we  who  are  working  for  peace  want  to  see 
is  the  body  of  every  woman  and  every  baby  made  as 
sacred  as  every  flag  is  now. 

But  by  working  for  peace,  we  mean  more  than  just 
stopping  the  fighting  as  our  end,  and  a  return  to  six  in- 
fernal years  such  as  followed  the  seizure  of  Bosnia  by 
Austria.  We  want  internal  peace,  and  real  friendship  be- 
tween one  nation  and  another.  We  want  the  boundaries 
of  nations  to  be  as  safe  as  the  interior.  Many  people  in 
Europe  think  that  the  greatest  achievement  in  America 
is  this  great  boundary  line,  thirty-five  hundred  miles  long, 
between  the  United  States  and  Canada,  without  a  soldier 
or  a  gunboat,  and  which  is  perfectly  safe.  There  are  no 
murders  across  that  border  or  any  other  kind  of  danger, 
any  more  than  across  the  borders  of  California  and  Ore- 

106 


The  Movement  for  Peace  and  Social  Progress 

gon;  there  are  no  men  on  either  side  who  are  not  subject 
to  law.  Where  nobody  is  loaded,  nobody  explodes;  and 
when  nobody  is  loaded  in  Europe,  there  will  be  no  explo- 
sion  there,  either. 

This  war  is  more  hideous  than  any  other  war  because 
people  have  been  thrown  from  a  high  state  of  civilization 
into  none  at  all.  This  is  causing  the  greatest  confusion ; 
it  is  going  to  set  all  the  honorable  and  God-fearing  people 
to  struggling  for  a  way  of  settling  these  problems.  We 
cannot  remain  self-respecting  as  things  are,  and  if  we 
cannot  reconcile  the  principle  of  nationality  with  our  self- 
respect,  the  principle  of  nationality  will  have  to  go.  The 
best  thing  I  ever  heard  Ex-President  Roosevelt  say  was 
that  it  always  pays  for  a  nation  to  be  a  gentleman. 

The  greatest  development  in  international  life,  since 
the  time  of  Jesus,  was  that  during  a  time  like  this,  but 
almost  infinitely  worse,  because  then  each  city  was  armed 
against  every  other,  when,  about  three  hundred  years  ago, 
Grotius  wrote  his  book  on  international  law.  It  is  under 
a  cloud  now  because  one  party  in  the  war  has  never  read 
it,  and  the  other  party  thinks  that  the  neutrals  are  so  good- 
natured  that  they  won't  mind  a  few  infractions.  But  a  new 
internationalism  will  arise  out  of  all  this  because  we  will 
make  it  arise.  The  young  men  of  this  century  now  alive 
will  find  opportunities  of  heroism  that  even  the  field  of 
battle  cannot  offer.  In  fact,  the  field  of  battle  is  the  last 
place  to  look  for  heroism  at  present,  for  the  modern  sol- 
dier is  a  mere  target  for  machinery  which  he  is  forced  to 
face.  But  outside  the  field  of  battle  we  are  going  to  have 
much  to  do,  as  much  as  Luther  and  Wesley.  We  have  to 
reconstruct  the  morals  of  the  world  as  these  men  recon- 
structed its  religion. 

What,  then,  are  we  going  to  do?  This  war  will  prob- 
ably end  in  something  like  a  drawn  battle.    Jean  de  Bloch 

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Addresses  World's  Social  Progress  Congress 

warned  us  that  great  armies  could  not  be  handled.  We 
have  brought  the  armies  into  battle  lines  as  long  as  from 
here  to  Los  Angeles ;  one  runs  from  the  Yser  to  Belfort, 
with  millions  of  men  on  each  side;  the  other  from  Lem- 
berg  to  Chernowitz,  and  neither  side,  so  far,  has  been  able 
to  gain  much.  There  were  thousands  of  men  wounded  in 
the  battles  about  Ypres  a  few  months  ago,  and  nobody 
knows  who  won.  Somebody  asked  the  other  day  who 
won  the  California  earthquake ;  of  course,  nobody  won  it ; 
it  was  a  defeat  all  around.  The  same  is  the  fact  here  at 
Ypres  where  as  many  men  fell  as  in  the  whole  Civil  War, 
and  yet  nobody  knows  who  won  that  battle.  In  the  Car- 
pathians nobody  knows  much  that  is  going  on  because  the 
censor  prevents  ;  but  as  many  men  might  be  lost  as  at  Jena 
or  Waterloo  without  the  name  of  the  place  ever  coming 
to  us,  and  if  it  did,  we  couldn't  pronounce  it,  and  so  we 
would  have  to  let  it  go.  It  is  all  useless,  and  will  end 
in  something  like  a  drawn  game. 

Prophecy  is  usually  impossible;  nobody  can  see  a 
week  ahead.  But  the  chances  are  that  the  war  will  end 
in  the  latter  part  of  the  summer  in  a  drawn  game,  and 
that  the  treaty  of  peace  will  not  settle  anything,  partly 
because  the  pressure  to  stop  will  be  so  great ;  the  loss  will 
outweigh  everything.  There  has  been  nothing  compar- 
able to  the  losses  in  this  war,  both  in  money  and  men,  and 
it  must  result  in  exhaustion.  They  have  already  spent 
on  this  war  more  than  the  value  of  all  the  property  in 
Russia,  more  than  all  the  farm  lands  in  the  United  States 
and  Canada  are  worth — all  thrown  away.  They  are 
spending  in  this  war  about  ninety  million  dollars  a  day, 
and  it  must  all  be  paid  sooner  or  later.  The  principal 
never  will  be,  but  the  interest  must  be  paid  during  many 
years  to  come  by  the  working  men  of  Europe ;  for  the 
"men  higher  up"  will  raise  the  cost  of  living  and  move 

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The  Movement  for  Peace  and  Social  Progress 

the  cost  of  war  down  until  it  falls  upon  the  people,  who, 
from  day  to  day,  are  making  additions  to  our  national 
wealth.  They  are  going  to  throw  a  great  deal  of  it  off 
on  us ;  they  have  already  made  enterprise  in  this  country 
impossible  because  no  man  knows  how  things  are  going 
to  turn  out,  and  that  makes  it  impossible  to  borrow.  And 
this  has  been  true,  not  only  since  the  beginning  of  the 
war,  but  for  two  or  three  years  before,  when  people  knew 
that  the  war  was  coming. 

Ignorant  people  talk  about  Mr.  Wilson's  policy  and  the 
tariff  being  responsible  for  the  hard  times.  Why,  any- 
thing like  that  isn't  a  drop  in  the  bucket  compared  with 
the  suppression  of  European  capital.  There  are  two  hun- 
dred  billion  dollars  represented  in  the  bonds  and  stocks 
of  Europe;  what  are  all  those  worth  now?  Nobody 
knows,  now,  where  any  corporation  will  stand  when  this 
war  comes  to  an  end. 

I  was  in  London  during  the  first  two  months  of  the  war, 
and  I  know  that  the  British  government  spent  seven  hun- 
dred million  dollars  to  keep  the  banks  solvent.  It  got 
back  all  but  fifty  million  dollars,  but  the  reason  for  this 
action  was  that  the  banks  had  pledges  to  receive  bills  of 
lading  and  one  thing  and  another  that  made  it  necessary 
for  the  government  to  do  this  if  it  didn't  want  an  instan- 
taneous crash.  It  was  important  for  the  whole  world  to 
keep  the  banks  going,  for  London  is  the  clearing  house 
for  the  whole  world.  It  would  be  a  catastrophe  for  Cal- 
ifornia if  every  bank  disappeared;  how  much  greater 
would  have  been  the  damage  to  the  world  if  the  London 
banks  should  disappear,  where  there  was  twenty  times  as 
much  business  of  this  kind  as  in  any  other  city.  Much  of 
this  now  comes  to  New  York,  and  thus  may  benefit  us; 
but,  in  a  general  way,  loss  is  loss,  and  a  loss  anywhere  in 

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Addresses  World's  Social  Progress  Congress 

the  world  is  distributed  everywhere,  just  as  the  loss  from 
the  San  Francisco  fire  was  scattered  all  over  the  world. 

I  was  in  Auckland,  New  Zealand,  at  that  time,  and  the 
wealthy  men  were  scurrying  about  there  in  New  Zealand, 
to  get  money  to  pay  their  obligations  on  the  fire  insur- 
ance; our  San  Francisco  fire  made  a  panic  in  New  Zea- 
land. 

There  is  going  to  be  an  exhaustion  of  life  in  this  war 
that  will  be  tremendous.  There  are  already  about  three 
million  Germans  killed  and  about  as  many  more  on  the 
other  side.  When  I  was  in  Bulgaria,  a  while  ago,  I  gave 
a  lecture  in  the  great  hall  in  Sofia.  The  subject  was  "Bul- 
garia in  the  Eyes  of  the  World."  After  the  lecture  was 
over,  some  eight  young  women,  all  of  them  very  attractive 
and  all  dressed  in  black,  came  up  and  spoke  to  me,  and 
they  said,  "We  are  the  widows  of  officers  in  the  Bul- 
garian army  who  were  killed  in  the  war;  we  want  to 
thank  you  in  God's  name  for  what  you  have  done  to  keep 
Bulgaria  from  going  into  the  next  war."  Bulgaria 
is  still  out  of  it,  but  the  pressure  upon  her  is  very  strong 
to  get  her  into  the  war,  especially  on  the  part  of  Germany, 
to  get  her  to  come  in  on  their  side.  The  people  want  to 
keep  out,  or,  if  they  do  go  into  it,  they  want  to  go  in  on 
the  side  of  the  allies.  As  conditions  are  now,  in  that  coun- 
try, Macedonia  is  full  of  wandering  bands  of  farmers 
who  have  lost  all  their  property  and  who  are  invading 
neighboring  countries.  In  one  place,  as  a  result  of  the 
last  war,  a  town  was  cut  off  from  its  own  railroad  sta- 
tion. That  sort  of  thing  makes  people  dissatisfied.  When 
there  is  nothing  else  to  do,  the  people  take  to  the  road. 
There  were  a  milHon  refugees  when  I  was  there,  going 
out  of  the  country.  A  population  about  as  large  as  that 
of  California  was  ordered  to  get  out ;  to  take  with  them 

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The  Movement  for  Peace  and  Social  Progress 

what  they  could,  and  leave  the  rest.  It  isn't  strange  that 
some  of  those  people  should  become  brigands  and  outlaws. 

What  is  going  to  be  the  cost  of  this  war,  the  effect  on 
future  generations  of  kilHng  all  these  men?  My  friend, 
Mr.  Stead,  used  to  be  fond  of  talking  about  the  picked 
half-million  who  are  the  natural  leaders,  the  educated 
men.  In  Great  Britain,  about  two-thirds  of  the  college 
men  are  in  the  army.  There  is  not  an  athlete  left  in  Ox- 
ford nor  in  Cambridge.  The  same  thing  is  true  in  Ger- 
many and  in  France ;  the  universities  are  simply  marking 
time.  While  this  picked  half -million  is  being  sent  off 
to  be  killed,  London  alone  is  carefully  preserving  two 
hundred  thousand  men,  men  of  the  slums.  I  have  seen 
them,  shambling,  adenoidal,  soaked  with  liquor  and  with 
vice.  They  have  been  saved  to  be  the  fathers  of  the  next 
generation.  There  is  an  Egyptian  proverb  which  runs 
like  this :  "Father  a  weed,  mother  a  weed,  do  you  expect 
the  daughter  to  be  saffron  root  ?"  Do  you  expect  the  chil- 
dren of  these  men  to  be  British  yeomen? 

The  greatest  danger  in  this  war  is  that  the  very  men 
who  are  the  most  fit  to  settle  the  questions  that  will  arise 
after  the  war  is  over,  are  precisely  the  ones  who  will  be 
killed  during  the  war.  It  is  going  to  leave  a  weakened 
nation,  and  our  statistics  all  go  to  show  that  it  will  leave 
a  weakened  nation  for  a  hundred  years  to  come.  It  will 
be  at  least  a  hundred  years  before  they  can  come  back  to 
the  level  of  force  and  initiative  that  they  have  now,  for 
these  are  the  very  quaHties  most  desired  in  a  soldier.  It 
has  taken  a  long  time  to  get  over  the  effects  of  the  Napo- 
leonic wars,  and  the  British  wars  in  India,  and  the  losses 
in  this  war  are  far  heavier  than  in  any  of  those. 

Some  one  said  the  other  day  that  the  peace  palace  at 
the  Hague  was  the  world's  grimmest  jest,  its  most  costly 
failure.  Carnegie  gave  the  kingdom  of  Holland  a  mil- 
Ill 


Addresses  World's  Social  Progress  Congress 

lion  and  a  half,  and  the  Dutch  people  have  put  up  some 
fine,  red  brick  buildings  with  white  trimmings,  among 
bulb  gardens,  as  their  fashion  is.  It  isn't  a  palace;  just 
a  great  hall  for  large  meetings,  and  smaller  halls  for  other 
purposes,  and  it  only  differs  from  this  building  here  in 
being  handsomer  outside  and  in  its  being  possible  to  hear 
some  one  inside. 

Since  I  began  talking  to  you,  the  nations  of  Europe 
have  already  spent  money  enough  to  build  a  peace  pal- 
ace, and  before  this  time  to-morrow  they  will  have  spent 
enough  to  build  forty  peace  palaces.  If  the  war  goes  on 
for  a  year  longer,  they  will  spend  enough  to  build  a  peace 
palace  like  that  in  every  town  in  Christendom,  and  in 
heathendom,  too,  if  there  is  any  difference  after  the  war. 

That  brings  me  to  say  one  thing.  People  say  Christi- 
anity didn't  stop  the  war.  That  is  a  compliment;  it  is 
equivalent  to  saying  that  war  is  wicked.  It  didn't  stop 
it;  Christianity  didn't  try;  if  Christian  people  had,  they 
would  have  succeeded.  Finance  didn't  stop  the  war,  nor 
industrialism,  nor  socialism ;  nothing  stopped  it.  Al- 
though not  one  man  in  a  thousand  in  any  of  those  coun- 
tries wanted  war,  there  was  no  voice  raised  against  it. 
There  was  no  way  for  public  opinion  to  be  expressed, 
no  way  to  dissipate  the  atmosphere  of  lies  that  surrounded 
everything.  The  people  of  every  nation  believe  that  the 
war  was  begun  by  some  one  else  and  that  they  are  fighting 
in  self-defense.  Somebody  must  be  mistaken,  and  when 
the  mistake  comes  out,  there  will  be  indignation.  There 
isn't  a  man  bold  enough  to  say,  "I  wanted  this  war" ;  not 
a  nation  that  will  stand  up  and  say,  *T  wanted  the  war 
and  brought  it  on."  Maybe  the  people  who  brought  it 
on  will  never  bring  it  on  again  for  fear  they  may  be 
caught,  and  it  might  be  dangerous  to  be  caught  at  it ;  for 

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The  Movement  for  Peace  and  Social  Progress 

the  people  will  find  themselves  loaded  down  with  debts 
that  they  cannot  pay. 

One  cause  of  the  war  was  because  people  would  not 
stand  the  burden  of  militarism  much  longer. 

It  had  come  to  the  point  where  British  bankers  would 
not  loan  money  on  the  continent  any  more,  because  the 
people  were  likely  to  say,  "We  have  borrowed  twenty- 
seven  thousand  million  dollars  which  have  been  spent  on 
war  and  there  is  no  way  to  pay  any  of  it  back ;  we  ought 
to  pay  the  interest,  but  we  cannot  pay  the  principal."  So 
the  banks  have  seen  the  handwriting  on  the  wall  and  the 
possibility  of  repudiation.  How  much  will  be  repudi- 
ated, it  is  impossible  to  say,  but  whenever  it  is  repudi- 
ated, it  will  be  no  longer  in  the  hands  of  bankers  and 
speculators,  but  in  the  hands  of  widows  and  orphans  and 
trust  funds.  There  are  a  great  many  people  who  are 
pensioners,  Hving  on  the  interest  of  borrowed  money, 
who  would  be  very  helpless  if  their  income  were  de- 
stroyed. 

When  this  war  is  over,  there  are  some  things  that  we 
hope  to  work  out.  When  I  say  "we,"  I  mean  that  there 
are  twelve  distinct  plans  which  have  been  developed  for 
working  these  matters  out,  by  different  groups.  The 
oldest  one  of  these  plans  was  drawn  up  by  the  Union  of 
Democratic  Control  in  London,  of  which  Norman  Angell 
was  at  the  head,  and  he  is  one  of  the  great  citizens  of  all 
time.  He  is  still  a  citizen  of  California,  and  that  helps  to 
give  him  a  voice  in  the  old  world,  because  Californians 
can  generally  be  heard  wherever  they  are. 

The  next  was  the  plan  of  the  socialists  of  southern 
Germany;  these  men  have  come  out  clearly  and  strongly 
as  to  what  they  want. 

Next  comes  the  World  Peace  Foundation  of  Boston.  I 
belong  to  that  and  helped  draw  up  their  plan. 

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Addresses  World's  Social  Progress  Congress 

Then  comes  the  Women's  Peace  Party,  which  is,  per- 
haps, more  important  than  any  because  women  make 
about  half  the  population  on  this  side,  and  will  form  about 
two  thirds  of  the  population  on  the  other  side,  on  account 
of  the  killing  of  the  men;  and  the  leader  of  the  whole 
movement,  so  far  as  America  is  concerned,  is  one  of  the 
wisest  women  that  ever  lived — Jane  Addams.  They  are 
going  to  hold  a  meeting  at  the  Hague,  at  which  the 
women  of  all  countries  will  be  represented. 

Then  there  are  also  the  women  of  Norway  and  Switzer- 
land, and  there  are  other  groups  in  different  parts  of  the 
world,  including  the  labor  party,  and  all  of  them  have 
made  statements  of  what  they  want. 

The  treaty  of  peace  probably  will  not  incorporate  much 
of  all  this;  it  may  be  like  the  Treaty  of  Ghent,  and  say 
simply,  "We  hereby  stop  fighting."  There  will  be  bit- 
terness and  recriminations,  and  it  may  be  as  well  if  there 
is  no  definite  victory,  for  victory  is  often  more  dangerous 
than  defeat,  as  has  already  been  shown  in  the  case  of 
many  nations.  It  leads  to  vain  glory  and  extravagance, 
while  defeat  often  leads  to  economy  and  industry,  and 
helps  make  heroes  of  the  men  in  civil  life  instead  of  those 
on  the  field  of  battle. 

We  want  to  see  Belgium  restored;  military  necessity 
for  us  here  is  no  plea  for  destroying  neutral  nations.  The 
world  belongs  to  the  neutral  people,  to  the  people  who  are 
not  fighting.  The  nations  who  are  fighting,  no  matter 
how  good  the  cause  they  fight  for,  become  lawless  and 
insane,  and  the  world  should  belong  to  the  people  who 
keep  their  heads. 

We  want  to  see  France  restored.  The  discipline  of  de- 
feat has  done  France  a  great  deal  of  good  ever  since  the 
military  element  there  died  out  twenty  years  ago.  Since 
then,   France  has  been  on  the  upgrade  more  than  any 

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The  Movement  for  Peace  and  Social  Progress 

other  nation  in  Europe.  The  evils  of  long-continued  war 
which  they  had  to  overcome,  were  very  great,  but  they 
have  been  slowly  and  steadily  progressing;  and  in  this 
war  you  will  notice  that  France  has  kept  her  head  as 
well  as  any  of  the  nations.  She  was  almost  helpless.  Her 
hands  are  not  clean,  for  she  had  no  business  in  Morocco, 
and  she  has  meddled  in  the  Balkans,  but  the  French  peo- 
ple were  not  responsible;  it  was  impossible  to  control  all 
the  great  capitalists  and  exploiters.  The  body  of  the 
French  people  has  been  steadily  rising  in  the  scale  of 
progress,  and  we  don't  want  to  see  anything  taken  away 
from  France. 

We  want  democratic  control ;  we  want  the  people  to 
have  something  to  say  as  to  whether  there  shall  be  war ; 
they  are  the  ones  who  have  to  pay,  who  have  to  die,  who 
have  to  bear  the  long  suffering,  and  yet  the  people  have 
nothing  to  say  about  it  even  in  France  and  England,  for 
even  there  these  things  are  settled  almost  entirely  with- 
out consulting  them. 

We  want  a  council  of  people  to  succeed  the  concert  of 
powers.  The  concert  has  accomplished  all  sorts  of  mis- 
chief in  trying  to  maintain  a  balance  in  the  Balkan  states. 
If  those  states  had  been  allowed  to  keep  together,  they 
would  have  made  a  power  that  would  have  tipped  the 
scales.  Accordingly  they  have  been  kept  irritated.  There 
should  be  no  more  quarrel  between  Bulgaria  and  Servia 
than  between  California  and  Oregon,  if  things  were  ra- 
tionally managed. 

We  want  to  see  military  preparedness  stopped ;  nobody 
ought  to  be  prepared  to  kill.  The  law  will  stop  you  if  you 
go  about  the  streets  with  "miHtary  preparedness."  Every 
nation  prepared  for  war  is  a  danger.  This  nation  will 
never  be  really  prepared  for  war  because  our  nation  is 
not  built  that  way;  a  nation  so  enhghtened  a>  to  grant 

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Addresses  World's  Social  Progress  Congress 

suffrage  to  its  women  can  never  be  turned  into  a  military 
nation.  The  reason  why  it  is  so  difficult  to  get  conscrip- 
tion in  England  is  because  it  is  a  free  country. 

We  want  to  see  the  Hague  conferences,  which  ought  to 
be  taking  place  every  eight  years,  we  want  that  to  be- 
come a  real  thing ;  to  make  it  honest,  and  we  don't  want 
men  sent  there  to  defeat  the  very  things  that  they  ought 
to  sustain.  The  United  States  has  sent  a  man  everv  time 
for  that  particular  purpose.  When  an  effort  was  made  to 
prohibit  the  dropping  of  bombs  on  cities,  it  was  an  Amer- 
ican who  made  it  impossible,  by  the  enforcement  of  the 
unit  rule.  That  is  one  of  the  things  that  have  made  this 
present  war  so  contemptible,  is  the  use  of  bombs  in 
attacking  innocent  people,  and  it  was  America's  insistence 
on  the  unit  rule  that  makes  it  possible,  because  a  man  was 
sent  to  the  conference  who  didn't  want  to  stop  war. 

Besides  the  Hague  Congress,  we  want  to  see  the  Hague 
Tribunal  developed  as  a  permanent  court.  Once  you 
have  a  permanent  court,  there  will  probably  be  almost  no 
questions  to  refer  to  it.  W^e  have  here  forty-eight  sep- 
arate States ;  from  the  European  point  of  view,  you  might 
suppose  they  would  be  always  quarreling.  How  many 
questions  have  been  brought  before  our  Supreme  Court, 
involving  complaints  of  one  State  against  another?  I 
only  remember  two,  and  neither  was  important.  There 
has  been  no  serious  feeling  between  the  States  since  we 
have  had  the  Supreme  Court,  and  there  would  be  nothing 
in  Europe.  People  talk  about  our  troubles  with  Japan, 
and  scoundrels  and  fools  talk  about  an  inevitable  war ;  but 
there  has  never  been  any  difficulty  with  Japan  that 
couldn't  be  settled  over  night,  if  we  wanted  to.  There  is 
one  real  question,  and  that  is  whether  the  State  of  Cal- 
ifornia has  the  right  to  drag  international  questions  into 
the  United  States,  and  deal  with  them  as  she  chooses.    If 

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The  Movement  for  Peace  and  Social  Progress 

she  has,  she  has,  and  if  she  hasn't,  she  must  quit;  but 
that  is  not  a  Japanese  problem,  nor  do  the  Japanese  con- 
sider it  so  except  certain  jingo  newspapers,  Japanese  and 
American.  Just  as  soon  as  these  things  leave  the  first 
page  of  these  papers,  nothing  more  is  thought  about  it. 
I  have  heard  men  declare  that  we  must .  fight  Great 
Britain,  and  in  a  week  we  had  forgotten  what  the  trouble 
was.  We  don't  want  to  kill  men  for  such  reasons  as 
that;  there  is  no  sense  in  it.  There  is  nothing  so  pre- 
posterous as  war. 

We  want  to  see  a  reduction  of  armaments.  There  have 
been  a  good  many  plans  for  this,  and  it  must  come,  be- 
cause the  nations  simply  cannot  stand  the  burden  of 
what  they  are  paying;  it  is  too  expensive.  They  are 
carrying  too  many  kings  for  their  business,  just  as  some 
kinds  of  business  carry  too  many  partners  to  be  supported 
by  the  profits.  If  they  were  to  let  us  settle  that,  I  think 
we  should  be  disposed  to  turn  out  a  few  of  them  and  let 
them  go  into  some  more  honorable  business.  Among 
those  to  keep,  I  think  we  would  pick  out  the  king  of  Bel- 
gium first,  and  after  that  the  king  of  Italy,  and  after  that 
we  might  be  puzzled.  We  want  to  see  the  navies  and 
armies  turned  into  international  police  forces  of  some 
kind.  They  seem  to  think  that  it  is  necessary  to  guard  the 
ocean  from  pirates.  Well,  there  are  still  a  few  that  come 
from  China,  but  not  many.  We  want  to  police  the  ocean ; 
but  more  important  than  that,  we  want  to  make  the  ocean 
free  and  open  all  the  time,  just  as  the  sidewalks  and 
streets  are  open  for  traffic,  no  matter  what  private  quar- 
rels may  be  going  on  in  the  apartment  houses  and  hotels ; 
that  sort  of  quarrel  is  not  allowed  to  disturb  the  street, 
nor  should  quarreling  nations  be  allowed  to  disturb  the 
ocean ;  they  ought  to  be  obliged  to  keep  their  warships 
sealed  up  inside  the  three-mile  limit;  they  have  no  busi- 

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Addresses  World's  Social  Progress  Congress 

ness  in  the  open  sea.  We  want  to  see  that  neutralized 
and  free  for  all  the  world,  and  all  the  channels  of  traffic 
as  well.  One  of  the  most  prolific  causes  of  ill  feeling  be- 
tween Germany  and  Russia  is  that  half  of  Russia  is  shut 
off  from  the  sea,  and  they  are  forced  to  ship  across  Ger- 
many. We  want  to  see  the  Dardanelles,  and  Gibraltar, 
and  Aden,  and  the  Kiel  Canal,  all  of  them  international- 
ized, without  fortifications,  and  free  to  every  ship.  There 
would  be  a  tremendous  gain  in  friendship  and  freedom 
from  wars. 

Constantinople  has  for  so  many  years  been  a  disgrace, 
partly  because  it  has  been  allowed  to  shut  in  traffic.  We 
want  to  see  it  made  a  neutralized  state,  constructed  out  of 
what  is  left  of  Turkey  in  Europe  and  part  of  Turkey  in 
Asia,  and  made  a  free  port.  Constantinople  has  the  most 
beautiful  site  of  any  city  in  the  world,  but  it  has  been 
for  all  these  years  merely  a  dirty  camp  of  grafters ;  the 
government  has  been  as  bad  as  possible,  and  then  some. 
If  that  were  made  a  free  city,  under  the  protection  of  the 
nations  of  Europe,  there  would  be  a  wonderful  future 
before  that  city.  There  is  no  reason  why  so  magnificent 
a  site  should  not  have  a  wonderful  future,  and  if  Con- 
stantinople were  allowed  to  develop,  Smyrna  and  Sal- 
onica  would  also  develop.  Salonica  was  a  city  in  the  time 
of  St.  Paul,  and  the  people  then  were  called  the  Thessa- 
lonians.  Thousands  of  people  have  been  forced  out  since 
a  year  ago  in  March,  because  it  has  been  impossible  since 
the  Balkan  war  for  men  to  make  a  living,  in  spite  of  the 
fact  that  Salonica  is  right  across  from  Mt.  Olympus,  right 
across  from  Greece.  It  is  impossible  to  live  there,  for  the 
land  is  being  constantly  tramped  over  by  armies  and 
brigands,  and  this  sort  of  thing  has  been  going  on  ever 
since  the  time  of  St.  Paul.  I  have  seen  rich  farming  lands 
within  a  hundred  miles  of  the  city,  all  grown  up  witli 

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The  Movement  for  Peace  and  Social  Progress 

briars  and  weeds,  because  it  was  not  safe  for  the  people 
to  plough. 

We  want  to  see  Armenia,  which  has  suffered  so  long, 
be  made  autonomous  in  some  way.  Russia  wants  to  take 
Armenia  to  her  bosom,  and  Armenia  may  consent ;  there 
are  degrees  even  in  hell,  and  they  may  prefer  to  leave 
Turkey  and  go  over  to  Russia. 

Poland  is  torn  all  to  pieces — she  has  been  for  the  last 
century,  and  is  still  torn  between  the  conflicting  armies. 
Her  citizens  are  fighting  under  three  flags,  none  of  them 
their  own,  and  Poland  has  been  getting  even  by  oppress- 
ing the  Jews,  and  the  whole  thing  is  as  bad  as  it  can  be. 
We  would  like  to  see  something  done  for  Poland;  Aus- 
trian Poland  has  had  some  autonomy,  but  the  other  parts 
have  not,  and  the  Poles  have  been  subject  to  great  op- 
pression. 

We  would  like  to  see  Finland  have  a  fair  chance.  The 
people  there  are  among  the  most  enlightened  in  the  world, 
but  they  lost  their  autonomy  some  time  ago.  - 

W^e  would  like  to  see  Alsace  and  Loraine  have  auton- 
omy somehow.  The  difficulty  has  been,  not  so  much  that 
they  were  French  and  hated  the  Germans,  but  that  they 
were  Germans  taken  back  but  not  made  citizens.  They 
were  Germans  of  the  second  class,  subject  to  all  sorts  of 
petty  oppression.  One  man,  who  was  going  out  of  busi- 
ness, was  brought  before  the  police  court  and  fined  be- 
cause the  words  in  his  announcement  had  been  arranged 
in  the  French  instead  of  the  German  order ;  barbers  have 
been  punished  because  they  used  French  words,  and  a 
milliner  was  fined  for  using  the  word  "mode."  There  is 
no  German  word  for  "mode,"  but  they  insisted  that  the 
milliner  should  use  a  germanized  form.  This  has  been 
worse  in  Alsace,  where  the  people  are  all  of  German 

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Addresses  World's  Social  Progress  Congress 

blood,  than  in  Loraine.  In  Alsace  ten  of  the  cities  were 
once  free  cities  of  the  empire,  and  they  don't  forget  it. 

So  we  want  to  see  Alsace  govern  itself.  Many  people 
have  demanded  that  these  provinces  should  have  a  vote  as 
to  which  country  they  should  belong  to,  but  it  is  not  that 
so  much  as  a  question  of  their  being  equal  when  they  have 
chosen.  Association  with  Germany  has  many  advan- 
tages ;  the  interests  of  Alsace  are  German ;  they  want  to 
be  Germans  if  they  can  be  Germans  in  full  equality.  If 
they  are  to  be  French,  then  they  want  all  the  rights  of 
other  Frenchmen.  France  has  made  one  mistake.  In- 
stead of  making  itself  a  federation,  the  old  provinces  have 
been  abolished,  and  France  has  become  too  much  central- 
ized, and  this  has  militated  against  the  outlying  districts. 
Both  Alsace  and  Loraine  were  opposed  to  this.  So  we 
find,  when  we  come  to  study  any  of  these  questions  that 
there  is  a  great  deal  of  inside  history,  so  that  these  things 
are  not  so  simple  as  they  look.  It  isn't  enough  to  say  to 
these  people,  "Vote  where  you  want  to  go" ;  that  doesn't 
answer  the  question.  The  question  is  answered  in  the 
Scriptures,  "In  honor  preferring  one  another."  We  must 
treat  one  another  decently. 

We  want  to  see  tariff  abolished.  We  have  one  here, 
but  it  isn't  so  very  harmful,  comparatively.  But  Europe 
is  not  much  larger  than  the  United  States.  We  have  free 
trade  among  the  States,  but  they  have  tariffs,  not  merely 
for  protection,  but  for  aggravation.  Russia  has  been  ag- 
gravated by  Germany,  and  there  has  been  irritation  be- 
tween Germany  and  France,  and  between  Austria  and 
Servia.  Servia  has  been  so  shut  in  that  it  is  almost  all 
anything  is  worth  to  ship  anything  in.  Rumania  is  shut 
in,  and  so  is  Bulgaria  by  Greece.  There  is  what  is  called 
the  "dead  sea  of  commerce"  in  that  region,  where  it  is 
imp6ssible  to  get  the  products  out.    I  have  seen  farmers 

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The  Movement  for  Peace  and  Social  Progress 

bringing  Turkish  tobacco  a  hundred  miles  over  the  Greek 
frontier,  paying  thirty-three  and  one-third  per  cent  duty, 
and  then  transporting  it  on  camels  to  Salonica  and  there 
paying  harbor  dues.  That  doesn't  leave  very  much  for 
the  man  who  raises  the  tobacco,  and  it  might  increase  the 
price. 

These  tariffs  are  an  aggravation  everywhere.  One  of 
the  things  that  made  Germany  strong  was  getting  rid  of 
all  her  internal  tariffs;  getting  rid  of  all  of  them  made 
commerce  possible  inside  of  Germany.  The  military  de- 
velopment has  been  merely  a  parasite  on  the  progress  of 
that  country,  as  it  has  on  that  of  every  other. 

We  want  to  stop  sending  our  armies  and  navies  to  for- 
eign lands  to  help  adventurers  there;  we  don't  want  to 
^end  our  army  into  Mexico  unless  we  know  exactly  what 
we  are  doing.  The  men  we  are  asked  to  protect  may  be 
filibusters  or  gamblers,  and  there  is  no  reason  for  sending 
our  American  boys  down  there  to  avenge  the  death  of 
men  like  that.  It  is  worth  while  to  make  them  pay  for  it, 
but  not  worth  sending  others  down  to  be  killed,  too. 

I  have  talked  longer  than  I  meant  to,  and  I  haven't  yet 
told  you  half  that  I  wanted  to  of  what  we  hope  to  do. 
There  is  going  to  be  enough  for  all  the  young  men  to  do ; 
but  at  present  the  main  thing  to  do  is  to  keep  this  country 
steady  so  that  our  influence  will  always  stand  for  fair  play 
and  peace. 

Lincoln's  greatness  consisted  in  the  fact  that  he  could 
count  the  cost,  and  America  should  do  just  that — count 
the  cost  of  any  line  of  action. 

The  great  war  will  come  to  its  end  some  time,  through 
exhaustion,  through  failure  of  finance,  through  starva- 
tion, through  sorrow,  for  every  nation  engaged  is  already 
a  nation  of  mourners.  There  is  little  prospect  that  the 
war  will  end  with  any  victory  at  anus.     It  may  be  that 

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Addresses  World's  Social  Progress  Congress 

Jean  de  Bloch  was  right.  The  armies  of  to-day  with  their 
hundreds  of  miles  of  battle  front  are  too  large  to  be 
maneuvered.  The  giant  guns  and  swift  instruments  of 
murder  balance  one  another.  Already  the  chief  force  of 
the  war  is  directed  against  non-combatants.  Little  head- 
way has  been  made  by  either  side  in  what  is  commonly 
thought  to  be  legitimate  warfare.  Except  for  the  crush- 
ing of  Belgium,  who  had  no  part  in  the  quarrel,  the  Ger- 
man armies  have  accomplished  little.  Except  for  parry- 
ing the  stab  at  France,  the  allies  have  made  small  head- 
way. And  everywhere  the  non-combatants  have  suffered 
as  much  as  the  armies. 

The  warfare  at  sea  on  both  sides  is  directed  mainly 
against  the  property  of  private  citizens.  The  raids  on 
seaside  resorts,  the  capture  of  merchant  ships,  the  whole 
matter  of  war  zone  blockade  and  food  contraband  is  di- 
rected against  people  who  have  no  way  of  striking  back. 
This  is  not  war,  but  piracy.  The  only  difference  between 
this  and  the  old-time  piracy  is  that  the  modern  freebooters 
frame  their  own  rules,  while  the  old-time  outlaw  defied  all 
statutes. 

Sooner  or  later  we  must  expect  the  final  treaty  of  peace. 
There  are  many  things  we  should  like  to  put  into  this 
treaty,  things  essential  to  its  future  security  and  the  well- 
being  of  Europe;  but  we  shall  not  get  many  of  them. 
We  may  not  get  any.  The  chances  are  that  the  drawn 
game  will  end  in  a  truce,  not  of  peace,  but  of  exhaustion. 
This  may  be  best,  for  the  real  enemy  of  civilization,  the 
obsession  of  military  force  which  has  subdued  Germany, 
might  overpower  a  victorious  Britain  also.  Defeat  is 
often  salutary,  and  all  must  meet  at  last  in  the  dust  of 
defeat. 

After  the  treaty  is  signed,  the  real  struggle  begins. 
Then  comes  the  test  of  our  mettle.     Can  we  build  up  a 

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The  Movement  for  Peace  and  Social  Progress 

solid  foundation  of  peace  amid  the  havoc  of  greed  and 
hate?  The  war  settles  nothing.  Constructive  work  be- 
longs to  peace.  It  may  take  fifty  years  of  peace  to  put 
Europe  in  order.  When  the  killing  is  stopped,  perma- 
nently or  for  a  breathing  spell,  the  forces  of  civilization 
must  mobilize  for  law  and  order. 

There  are  many  things  we  need  to  make  European 
civilization  stable  and  wholesome.  Every  one  of  these 
will  help.  We  will  push  whatever  we  can.  We  want  for- 
eign exploitation  limited  by  law  and  justice.  We  want 
foreign  adventurers  no  longer  backed  by  diplomacy  and 
armed  force.  We  want  no  more  "red  rubber,"  red  copra, 
or  red  diamonds.  We  want  open  diplomacy  and  we  want 
democratic  control  of  foreign  poHtics.  Whatever  is  secret 
is  corrupt,  and  the  management  of  armies  by  a  select  few, 
makes  them  a  menace  to  the  many. 

We  would  have  a  council  of  people  instead  of  a  concert 
of  powers.  The  people  who  pay  and  die  should  know  what 
they  pay  for  and  why  they  are  called  upon  to  die.  We 
want  all  private  profit  taken  away  from  war.  We  want 
to  see  armies  and  navies  brought  down  from  the  maxi- 
mum of  expense  to  the  minimum  of  safety.  We  want  to 
see  conscription  abolished  and  military  service  put  on  the 
same  basis  as  other  trades.  The  main  cause  of  modern 
war  is  the  need  of  finding  something  for  armies  and 
navies  to  do.  We  want  to  do  away  with  piracy  at  sea  and 
murder  in  the  air.  We  want  to  conserve  the  interests  of 
neutrals  and  non-combatants.  We  want  to  take  from  war 
its  loot  and  its  glory.  Without  these,  the  one  or  the  other, 
it  would  not  be  easy  to  drive  men  to  fight.  We  would 
hope  for  an  abatement  of  tariffs  and  of  all  obstacles  that 
check  the  flow  of  commerce.  With  a  free  current  of 
trade,  the  eastern  half  of  Europe  would  lose  its  long  un- 
rest.   We  cannot  mend  all  the  defects  of  geography,  but 

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Addresses  World's  Social  Progress  Congress 

we  may  refrain  from  aggravating  them.  Land-locked  na- 
tions will  not  be  tempted  to  hew  a  way  to  the  sea  if  we 
do  not  make  the  sea  artificially  distant  by  barriers  to 
trade.  We  would  like  to  see  men  and  nations  pay  their 
debts,  not  struggle  in  rivalry  in  the  evil  art  of  borrowing. 

Then  we  would  like  to  see  manhood  suffrage  every- 
where, and  womanhood  suffrage,  too.  We  would  like  to 
see  parliaments  made  effective,  not  set  apart  as  debating 
societies,  without  power  of  action.  We  would  like  to 
see  land  refonns,  tax  reforms,  reforms  in  schools  and 
universities,  in  judicial  procedure,  in  religious  freedom, 
in  sanitation  and  temperance,  in  the  elimination  of  caste 
and  privilege  wherever  entrenched.  We  would  see  every 
man  who  lives  in  a  country  a  potential  citizen  of  it,  if  he 
minds  his  own  business  and  meets  the  requirements  made 
of  other  citizens.  We  would  like  to  see  the  map  of  Eu- 
rope redrawn  a  bit  in  the  interests  of  freedom  and  fair 
play.  We  would  like  to  see  the  small  nations  made  as 
stable  as  great  ones,  for  a  small  nation,  if  relieved  from 
the  terror  of  war,  other  things  being  equal,  may  do  more 
than  its  share  in  the  work  of  civilization.  The  greatness 
of  a  nation  has  nothing  to  do  with  its  bigness.  We  be- 
lieve that  a  nation  can  have  no  welfare  independent  of 
the  individual  welfare  of  its  people.  That  nation  is  great- 
est whose  people  have  most  individual  initiative  and  most 
abundant  life. 

We  would  like  to  see  Belgium  restored  to  the  "per- 
manent neutrality"  which  is  its  right,  and  Luxemburg  as 
well.  We  believe  that  the  "Balkans  should  belong  to  the 
Balkans,"  and  Serbia  to  the  Serbians.  We  would  like  to 
see,  if  may  be,  Constantinople  neutralized  and  autonomy 
restored  to  Alsace-Loraine,  to  Finland,  to  Armenia.  We 
would  like  to  hear  from  the  Danes  in  northern  Schleswig, 
and  from  the  Poles  in  Posen  and  Galicia,  the  people  con- 

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The  Movement  for  Peace  and  Social  Progress 

suited  over  every  change  in  boundary  lines,  not  forgetting 
that  to  pull  up  new  roots  may  not  atone  for  the  past  in- 
jury to  the  old  ones.  We  would  hke  to  see  the  Hague 
conferences  made  serious  by  sending  to  them  real  states- 
men, intent  on  the  welfare  of  the  people,  not  diploma- 
tists, sparring  for  advantage.  We  would  Hke  to  see  the 
Hague  Tribunal  dignified  as  the  International  Court  of 
the  world,  to  create  international  law  by  its  precedents. 
We  would  Hke  to  see  judicial  procedure  and  arbitral  de- 
cisions take  the  place  of  war  talk  and  war  preparations. 
We  should  like  to  see  the  channels  of  commerce  opened 
wide,  neutralized,  unfortified,  and  free  to  all  the  world, 
the  Bosporus,  the  Dardanelles,  the  straits  of  Denmark, 
the  straits  of  Gibraltar,  the  Red  Sea,  and  the  canals  of 
Suez,  Panama,  and  Kiel  as  well.  Whatever  is  good  for 
the  world  is  good  for  every  nation  in  it,  and  whatever 
really  aids  one  nation,  must  help  them  all.  All  this  leaves 
plenty  for  the  friends  of  peace  to  do. 

Not  much  of  it  will  go  into  the  treaty  of  peace.  We 
will  not  be  discouraged  if  we  get  none  of  it.  We  have 
time  on  our  side,  and  the  opportunity  for  education.  A 
few  resolute  men,  like-minded  and  fearless  of  conse- 
quences, brought  on  this  war;  a  few  men,  like-minded 
and  resolute,  could  make  war  impossible,  if  they  had  the 
backing  the  weight  of  their  cause  demands.  To  get 
peace  is  to  do  away  with  standing  incentives  to  war.  War 
itself  cannot  do  this.  War  cannot  end  war.  Only  the 
activities  of  peace  can  end  war;  and  among  these  activ- 
ities he  who  looks  for  it  may  find  in  full  abundance,  the 
long-sought  "moral  equivalent  for  war." 


125 


Chapter  IX. 

THE  PACIFIC  COAST  AND  THE  PEACE 
MOVEMENT. 

BY  ROBERT  CROMWELL  ROOT. 

My  theme  this  afternoon  is  the  interest  of  the  Pacific 
Coast  in  the  peace  movement.  We  sometimes  wonder 
what  the  interest  of  the  United  States  may  be  in  the  peace 
movement,  or  what  the  interest  of  Europe  may  be  in  the 
peace  movement,  or  what  the  interest  of  Asia  may  be  in 
the  peace  movement ;  but  I  should  like  to  consider  the  in- 
terest of  our  own  portion  of  this  great  Union,  and  speak 
of  the  interest  of  the  Pacific  Coast  in  the  world-wide 
peace  movement.  Not  that  we  wish  to  estimate  ourselves 
beyond  our  due,  but  rather  to  see  what  the  part  is  that 
we  must  play,  in  world  affairs,  and  the  part  that  we 
should  take  in  national  and  international  affairs.  For  the 
question  involved  in  the  peace  movement  is  not  simply  a 
local  one,  although  we  shall  view  it  in  a  measure  from  a 
local  standpoint,  but  is  international  and  worldwide ;  and 
just  as  we  are  a  part  of  the  union  of  American  States,  we 
are,  in  a  still  larger  measure,  a  part  of  the  world,  and 
we  must  decide  what  our  destiny  and  our  part  in  the 
world's  afifairs  is  to  be.  For  whether  we  will  or  no,  you 
and  I  are  not  merely  citizens  of  California,  we  are  not 
merely  citizens  of  the  United  States;  to-day  you  and  I 
are  world  citizens,  and  we  must  measure  up  to  the  stand- 
ard of  world  citizenship  or  we  fail  in  our  duty  to  our 
fellow-men.  We  fail  in  our  duty  to  our  fellow-men  un- 
less we  measure  up  to  the  standards  of  international  cit- 
izenship. 

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The  Pacific  Coast  and  the  Peace  Movement 

Now,  in  the  first  place,  I  want  to  consider  the  interest 
of  the  Pacific  Coast  from  the  commercial  standpoint.  I 
shall  take  that  first  because  I  consider  it,  important  as  it 
is,  the  least  important  of  all,  for  it  is  the  standard  of  the 
dollar  rather  than  of  the  man.  But  from  the  standpoint 
of  the  dollar,  what  is  the  interest  of  the  Pacific  Coast  in 
the  peace  movement?  Much  in  every  way.  The  great 
things  of  the  future,  if  you  will  but  study  them,  you  must 
decide,  it  seems  to  me,  are  to  be  around  the  borders  of 
the  Pacific  Ocean.  We  of  the  Pacific  Coast  face  one  side 
of  that  ocean,  and  the  rising  powers  of  the  Orient  face 
the  other  side.  Now,  what  is  the  commercial  problem? 
You  and  I  can  scarcely  understand  it  when  we  recall  the 
fact  that  in  China  there  are  four  hundred  and  thirty  mil- 
lion human  beings,  just  in  that  one  nation,  and  that  na- 
tion is  beginning  to  rise  and  come  into  its  own.  And 
that  nation  has  tremendous  resources.  It  can  already,  I 
am  told  on  good  authority,  put  down  pig  iron  in  Pitts- 
burgh cheaper  than  the  Pittsburgh  manufacturers  can 
manufacture  it  for  themselves.  Why?  China  has  coal 
and  iron  in  immense  quantities  side  by  side.  You  who 
are  familiar  with  commercial  developments  in  Europe, 
will  recall  the  fact  that  England's  supremacy  commer- 
cially is  due  largely  to  the  fact  that  she  had,  side  by  side, 
coal  and  iron  to  manufacture  at  the  time  when  she  had 
to  change  her  policy  from  an  agricultural  nation  to  a 
manufacturing  nation. 

Beginning  back  in  1741-46  England  began  to  make  this 
change,  when  she  could  no  longer  feed  her  own  people, 
but  was  compelled  to  become  a  manufacturing  nation. 
China  is  more  fortunate  than  England,  because  she  can- 
not only  feed  her  own  people,  but  can  also  produce  man- 
ufactures cheaper  than  any  other  country  on  earth ;  and 
the  Chinese  young  men  are  gathering  into  the  colleges 

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Addresses  World's  Social  Progress  Congress 

everywhere  in  this  country  and  in  Europe  that  they  may 
fit  themselves  for  developing  the  immense  opportunities 
of  their  own  country. 

The  adjoining  nation  of  Japan  is  in  somewhat  the  same 
position.  These  two  nations  are  just  emerging  into  a 
plane  of  citizenship  comparable  to  our  own.  They  have 
opened  the  doors  of  their  country  to  our  civilization. 
What  is  going  to  happen  when  China  and  Japan  import 
as  many  goods  as  the  United  States  does,  per  capita,  or 
as  much  as  England  or  Germany  or  France?  We  can 
hardly  get  an  inkHng  of  the  future  possibilities  of  trade 
with  the  Orient. 

Some  of  you  have  heard  of  Wu  Ting  Fang.  On  one 
occasion,  when  he  was  in  America,  he  made  this  state- 
ment, speaking  of  his  own  country,  "If  the  Chinese 
were  to  lengthen  their  cotton  shirts  but  one  inch, 
that  one  inch  of  additional  cloth  would  consume  the  en- 
tire product  of  the  cotton  fields  of  the  United  States  for 
one  year."  From  that  alone  you  can  get  some  idea  of  the 
possibilities  of  trade  with  China.  It  would  take  thirteen 
million  bales  of  cotton  during  one  year,  for  just  that  one 
additional  inch. 

China  imports  to-day  only  eighty-five  cents  per  capita 
of  imported  goods,  but  when  she  increases  that  to  the 
standard  of  the  United  States,  or  only  half  our  standard, 
which  is,  I  believe,  eighteen  or  twenty  dollars  per  capita 
— and  that  day  is  coming — what  will  that  mean?  It  will 
mean  the  extension  of  factories  and  mills  and  farms  and 
of  every  avenue  for  the  employment  of  labor.  What  will 
it  mean  when  Qiina  buys  Uke  that  for  her  people  ?  It  will 
mean  that  we  can  sell  more  of  our  goods  to  China  than 
ever  before,  in  increasing  ratio  and  increasing  quantities. 
Goods  from  the  United  States  and  from  every  nation  will 
go  to  the  Orient.    It  means  larger  employment  of  labor, 

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The  Pacific  Coast  and  the  Peace  Movement 

more  wages,  more  consumption  of  raw  materials,  and  a 
better  industrial  and  social  condition  of  the  people  that 
take  part  in  that  trade  that  is  going  to  develop  between 
China  and  the  United  States.  If  China  can  produce  her 
own  food  largely,  and  also  manufacture,  as  the  indications 
are  that  she  can,  so  that  she  can  outsell  other  nations,  the 
question  arises,  Would  it  be  better  to  make  friends  with 
China,  or  enemies  ?  The  question  of  war  and  peace  is  in- 
volved. For  it  seems  to  ifie  very  evident  that  war  is  the 
greatest  destroyer  of  commerce.  Take  our  Civil  War;  it 
nearly  destroyed  northern  commerce  by  means  of  the 
southern  ships  of  war.  War  is  the  great  destroyer  of 
commerce.  Commerce  is  supported  by  industry  and  la- 
bor, so  that  a  large  commerce  means,  directly  and  indi- 
rectly, better  conditions  for  labor,  more  factories  and 
mills,  and  a  greater  extension  of  the  benefits  of  the  in- 
dustry of  men.  With  the  extension  of  commerce  into 
Japan  and  China,  there  must  go  a  development  of  our 
commerce,  and  with  it  a  development  of  friendship  and 
international  ties  in  various  degrees  of  intimacy  between 
the  Orient  and  the  Occident. 

It  seems  to  me  that  as  we  study  this  question  of  the 
Pacific  Coast  and  its  relation  to  the  Orient,  it  becomes 
a  question  of  world  peace  depending  not  merely  upon  the 
citizens  of  California,  Oregon,  and  Washington,  but  upon 
all  those  interested  in  the  Pacific  Coast. 

One  thing  further  in  regard  to  commerce.  If  China 
and  Japan  and  their  four  or  five  hundred  million  peo- 
ple are  going  to  be  such  a  significant  commercial  factor 
in  the  future,  affecting  our  welfare  or  ill-fare,  what  would 
be  the  sane  policy  of  this  country?  To  develop  that  com- 
merce and  make  it  what  it  should  be,  and  take  our  share 
of  it  and  prosper  thereby ;  or  shall  we,  with  the  short- 
sightedness of  the  militarist,  the  short-sightedness  com- 

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Addresses  World^s  Social  Progress  Congress 

mon  to  the  war  advocate  and  to  the  jingo — shall  we  de- 
stroy the  possibilities  of  future  trade  with  the  Orient, 
with  the  millions  in  China  and  Japan  and  the  Malay  pen- 
insula ?  Shall  we  not  cultivate  it,  merely  from  the  stand- 
ard of  dollars  and  cents  that  our  own  people  may  be 
benefited  ?  It  would  be  simply  good  common  sense ;  it 
would  bring  prosperity  to  us  as  a  people  and  to  our  la- 
boring classes. 

Not  only  is  that  true,  but  there  is  another  point.  Sup- 
posing, as  I  indicated  a  while  ago,  that  we  should  be 
foolish  enough  not  to  make  friends  with  China,  with  its 
great  natural  resources  and  its  teeming  millions,  far  be- 
yond anything  we  can  attain  in  centuries,  for  they  have 
four  hundred  per  cent  the  start  of  us  in  population. 
China  has  resources  beyond  the  natural  resources  of  the 
United  States  in  minerals ;  she  has  all  that  is  necessary  to 
build  up  a  nation.  Shall  we  make  friends,  which  is  just 
as  easy  as  to  make  them  our  enemies  ?  Why  not  make  a 
friend  of  China?  A  few  years  ago,  when  we  returned 
ten  or  eleven  million  dollars  of  indemnity,  did  we  not 
make  a  fast  friend  of  China  ?  We  know  now  that  China 
will  stand  by  the  United  States  just  as  long  as  the  United 
States  stands  by  China. 

I  remember  well  listening  to  one  of  the  most  eloquent 
Chinamen  I  ever  heard  speak,  a  citizen  of  this  great  city, 
Ning  Pong  Choo.  He  said  that  on  one  occasion,  when 
speaking  to  a  lot  of  teachers,  he  pointed  to  the  Stars  and 
Stripes  and  said,  "That  is  the  banner  of  a  nation  that 
China  will  never  Hft  her  hand  against."  Why?  He  had 
just  referred  to  the  fact  that  we  had  been  a  friend  to 
China,  that  we  had  acted  justly  toward  China,  and  because 
of  that,  this  brilliant  Chinaman,  speaking  for  his  nation, 
said  what  he  did.  We  have  won  her  friendship,  and  with 
friendship  will  come  trade;  war  would  destroy  both. 

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The  Pacific  Coast  and  the  Peace  Movement 

Again,  what  is  the  interest  of  the  Pacific  Coast  in  the 
matter  of  peace  with  Japan?  Let  me  go  back  just  a  httle 
in  the  history  of  the  relations  between  Japan  and  the 
United  States.  You  remember  that  about  1852  or  1853 
one  of  our  sailors,  Commodore  Perry,  somewhat  diplo- 
matically as  well  as  somewhat  forcibly,  opened  the  doors 
of  Japan  to  western  civilization.  Japan  appreciated  that 
act  of  ours  very  much.  Japan  also  appreciated  the 
friendly  attitude  of  our  ministers  who  went  to  Japan 
soon  afterward.  Read  the  story  of  those  early  ministers 
of  ours  to  Japan  and  of  the  attitude  they  took  toward 
Japan,  and  you  will  see  that  for  a  long  time,  at  least, 
Japan  was  most  friendly  to  the  United  States.  In  1863, 
unfortunately  for  us  and  some  of  the  other  nations,  some 
of  our  vessels  anchored  in  a  roadstead  in  Japan  in  a  for- 
bidden place.  They  were  warned  that  it  was  not  a 
proper  place,  but  stubborn  as  they  were,  the  English, 
French,  and  some  of  our  own  captains  refused  to  move, 
and  some  guns  were  fired  at  them  from  batteries  on  shore, 
and  of  course  they  fired  back  and  did  considerable  dam- 
age to  the  batteries.  But  at  that  time  they  were  satis- 
fied with  that.  The  next  year,  French  and  English  and 
American  vessels  entered  the  roadstead  and  demolished 
it  and  exacted  an  indemnity  of  which  our  share  amounted 
to  $785,000.  Time  went  on,  and  in  1883  our  Congress 
returned  that  unjust  claim  against  Japan,  because  it  was 
an  unjust  claim,  and  that  made  Japan  our  friend  and  tied 
her  to  us  with  hooks  of  steel.  Japan  felt  that  we  were  her 
friends  because  of  that  act,  and  she  has  acted  ever  since 
as  though  she  wanted  to  be  friends  with  us. 

Just  one  other  thing  to  show  how  Japan  appreciated 
this  act  of  returning  money  which  we  had  collected  from 
her  unjustly,  how  she  appreciated  our  fair  dealing.  Do 
you   remember  how,    following  the   Golden   Rule,   what 

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Addresses  World* s  Social  Progress  Congress 

happened  when  this  city  lay  in  ashes,  following  the  earth- 
quake, Japan  turned  over  to  this  city  two  hundred  and 
forty  thousand  dollars  in  cash  to  help  San  Francisco.  We 
had  played  the  part  of  a  friend  and  had  acted  in  the  spirit 
of  the  Golden  Rule,  and  when  opportunity  offered,  Japan 
did  the  same  to  us.  When  our  fleet  went  to  Japan  in  1908, 
no  country  on  earth  gave  that  fleet  so  royal  a  welcome  as 
did  the  little  empire  of  Japan.  Just  a  few  days  ago,  over 
here  on  the  exposition  grounds,  at  the  time  that  the  Jap- 
anese village  was  dedicated,  some  of  you  may  have  heard 
Mayor  Rolph  state  that  Japan  proposed  to  give  her  beau- 
tiful building,  with  its  gardens,  valued  at  a  million  dol- 
lars, to  this  country  as  a  mark  of  her  friendship  and  her 
appreciation  of  our  friendly  attitude  toward  her. 

Do  you  not  see  how  we  must  cultivate  friendship  with 
the  Orient ;  how  we  may  win  them  as  friends,  and  through 
our  friendly  relationship  with  them,  develop  a  tremend- 
ous trade  with  these  nations? 

But  if,  on  the  other  hand,  we  are  not  wise  enough  to 
make  friends,  and  instead  choose  to  make  enemies  of 
them,  there  are  tremendous  possibiHties  of  evil  on  this 
Pacific  Coast,  as  well  as  for  good.  That  is  what  I  want 
you  to  bear  in  mind  this  afternoon.  I  want  you  to  put 
all  the  emphasis  on  the  tremendous  possibilities  for  good, 
and  to  look  at  the  other  side  only  as  a  warning  to  turn  us 
away  from  a  wrong  attitude  in  dealing  with  the  Orient. 
We  are  sometimes  told  by  the  Jingo  that  Japan  wants 
to  fight  the  United  States.  Let  me  suggest  that  after 
what  I  have  just  said,  it  must  be  evident  that  Japan  has 
done  everything  to  show  her  good  will.  But  suppose  we 
should  stir  up  ill  will.  I  remember  a  few  years  ago,  when 
the  Japanese  fleet  came  to  Los  Angeles,  the  admiral  ut- 
tered these  words  in  a  speech,  '*The  strength  and  the 
efficiency  of  the  Japanese  navy  is  due  to  the  influence  of 

132 


The  Pacific  Coast  and  the  Peace  Mozement 

the  United  States."  The  increase  of  our  own  army  and 
navy  had  influenced  Japan  to  make  hers  also  strong.  If 
we  build  up  a  great  army  and  navy,  we  invite  them  to 
do  the  same,  and  when  there  are  great  arniies  and  navies 
on  both  sides,  you  know  what  happens ;  you  know  what 
has  happened  in  Europe.  What  happened  in  Mexico  in 
1841;  what  happened  in  the  Phihppines?  Our  poHcy 
should  not  be  to  build  up  a  big  army  and  navy,  because 
the  nations  of  the  Orient  will  follow  in  our  footsteps. 
They  look  upon  us  as  their  teacher,  and  the  way  we  go, 
they  will  go.  And  as  we  know,  armies  and  navies  are  not 
the  guarantors  of  peace,  but  a  temptation  to  destroy. 

There  is  one  other  thing  in  connection  with  the  Orient, 
and  that  is  our  international  relations.  As  a  part  of  this 
great  nation,  we  are  interested  in  its  international  affairs. 
California  herself  has  brought  us  into  international  dis- 
cord with  Japan,  and  I  regret  that  it  has  done  so;  I  re- 
gret that  the  aHen  land  law  was  passed  in  California. 
For,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  the  Japanese  population  was  de- 
creasing instead  of  increasing  at  the  time  that  law  was 
passed,  and  time  would  have  settled  that  question  better 
than  legal  enactment.  It  was  a  matter  that  should  have 
been  dealt  with  from  Washington  and  not  from  Sacra- 
mento. Such  questions  should  be  dealt  with  only  by  the 
National  Government,  since  they  involve  international 
relations. 

We  must  deal  with  these  questions  from  a  national 
standpoint  and  not  from  a  local  one;  the  latter  course 
leads  to  endless  confusion  and  endless  conflict,  whereas 
if  they  are  left  to  the  National  Government,  they  can  be 
solved  far  more  justly  and  easily  than  from  the  capitals 
of  forty-eight  States. 

I  wish  that  every  one  were  familiar  with  some  books 
recently  published  on  this  subject,  such  as  "Asia  at  the 

133 


Addresses  World's  Social  Progress  Congress 

Door  of  the  United  States/'  written  by  a  Japanese  who 
has  also  written  other  books  which  are  well  worth  read- 
ing. Or  read  *'J^P^^'s  Message  to  America,"  and  Doctor 
Aked's  reply  to  it.  These  questions  concern  you  and 
me  as  citizens  of  this  great  State  and  Nation,  and  as 
world  citizens  also,  and  if  we  are  to  measure  up  to  the 
standard  of  international  citizenship,  we  must  study  them, 
and  they  must  be  settled  in  the  light  of  justice  and  fair- 
ness and  the  Golden  Rule. 

One  other  reason  why  the  Pacific  Coast  is  interested  in 
the  peace  movement  you  will  understand  if  you  will  spend 
a  few  hours  at  the  exposition.  You  will  find  that  the 
Orient  can  give  us  many  lessons  in  art  and  in  literature. 
I  remember  a  friend  of  mine  who  was  at  the  St.  Louis 
Exposition  told  me  that  one  of  the  members  of  the 
Committee  on  Fine  Arts  who  judged  the  exhibits  there, 
had  said  that  the  committee  was  repeatedly  required  to 
give  awards  to  Japan,  until  finally  the  Japanese  member 
of  that  committee  actually  begged  the  committee  not  to 
give  so  many  prizes  to  the  people  of  his  nation.  "For," 
said  the  Japanese  artist,  "my  country  has  been  producing 
art  of  that  character  for  two  hundred  and  fifty  years,  but 
we  were  never  esteemed  a  great  nation  until  we  built  bat- 
tleships and  began  to  kill  people."  What  a  criticism  that 
was  of  our  standards !  The  Japanese  are  an  artistic  na- 
tion, and  we  can  learn  through  them  of  art  and  literature 
and  some  important  industries.  For  indeed  I  want  to 
state  the  truth,  even  though  it  hurts.  We,  in  California, 
can  learn  something  of  industry  from  the  Japanese  in  our 
midst;  they  have  taken  some  of  the  waste  places  of  the 
State  and  made  gardens  of  them.  I  invite  you  to  inspect 
certain  districts  of  California  where  they  have  done  just 
that.    And  I  have  no  special  plea  to  make  for  the  Japanese 

134 


The  Pacific  Coast  and  the  Peace  Movement 

more  than  any  other  nation  ;  my  plea  is  merely  for  justice ; 
right,  not  might. 

For  these  reasons  I  am  convinced  that  we  of  the  Pa- 
cific Coast  should  study  these  questions  of  international 
peace,  not  only  from  the  standpoint  of  industry  and  com- 
merce, but  from  the  higher  standpoint  of  art  and  liter- 
ature, and  still  higher  than  these,  by  the  command  of 
God  himself,  who  has  commanded  that  we  shall  love  our 
neighbor  as  ourself.  Here  we  have  in  the  Orient  untold 
millions  of  neighbors,  and  the  future  civilization  is  going 
to  be  largely  determined  by  the  influence  of  Christian 
men.  Let  us  not  forget  the  request  of  the  young  republic 
of  China  when  she  asked  for  the  prayers  of  the  Christian 
world  that  she  might  be  guided  in  the  ways  of  right  and 
justice.  This  is  the  greatest  opportunity  that  ever  opened 
to  the  Christian  missionary  and  to  this  country,  for  this 
nation  lies  right  opposite  our  own  shores. 

It  is  a  big  question — immense ;  not  one  of  the  little 
things  that  may  come  into  our  lives,  but  the  biggest  ques- 
tion that  confronts  the  world  to-day,  this  problem  of  the 
Occident  and  the  Orient.  Shall  we  face  it  like  men,  or 
shall  we  slink  away  from  it  like  cowards?  That  is  the 
question  we  must  answer.  Shall  we  do  the  right  thing; 
do  to  them  as  we  would  have  them  do  to  us?  Shall  we 
not  be  brave  and  true  to  ourselves  and  our  fellows? 

My  time  has  come  to  an  end,  and  I  have  just  one 
thought  more.  I  believe,  as  Bobbie  Burns  sang  a  hun- 
dred and  fifty  years  ago,  that  a  man's  a  man  the  world 
o'er,  and  I  believe  that  it  is  your  duty  and  mine  to 
work  to  bring  about  the  brotherhood  of  man.  The  time 
will  come  when  humanity  will  rejoice,  and  men  and 
women  join  hands,  and  these  problems  be  resolved  rightly 
and  justly  to  all  humanity. 


135 


Chapter  X. 

WAR  AND  SOCIAL  PROGRESS,  OR  THE  DIRECT 
ACTION  OF  WAR  ON  THE  HUMAN  RACE. 

BY  CHARLES  ATWOOD  KOFOID. 

It  may  seem  to  some  of  you  very  strange  that  I  should 
have  put  up  all  these  charts  of  potato  beetles  and  sweet 
com  and  primroses,  and  you  may  suspect  that  in  some 
way  the  college  has  made  a  mistake  and  sent  over  an 
agricultural  lecturer.  But  before  I  get  through  I  hope 
that  I  shall  make  plain  to  you  that  if  the  nations  of  Eu- 
rope had  learned  the  lessons  which  biology  is  teaching, 
they  would  have  waited  a  few  days  before  going  to  war, 
for  if  modern  science  teaches  one  thing  finally,  it  is  that 
war  is  a  biological  mistake  and  a  failure,  and  that  these 
primroses  and  beetles  have  taught  one  thing  that  we 
should  learn,  namely,  that  the  human  stock  is  of  great 
value,  and  is  governed  by  law,  just  as  is  the  stock  of  any 
other  living  thing.  We  have  hitherto  taken  it  for  granted 
that  the  Creator  took  care  of  the  human  stock,  quite  too 
much;  we  have  been  very  careful  about  the  horses  and 
the  pigs  and  the  chickens,  but  very  careless  about  our 
responsibility  for  the  preservation  and  the  type  of  the 
human  race,  which  is  only  temporarily  in  our  charge. 

This  war  which  is  now  going  on  in  Europe,  illustrates 
in  human  society  the  ruthless  application  of  one  phase  of 
biological  teaching,  which  was  the  outcome  in  part  of  the 
industrial  struggle  of  the  last  century.  Charles  Darwin 
lived  in  an  atmosphere  of  the  great  struggle  between 
labor  and  capital,  which  exterminated  so  many  of  the 
smaller  interests,   and   resulted   in   the   survival  of   the 

136 


IVar  and  Social  Progress 

strong,  and  he  evolved  the  doctrine  of  natural  selection, 
which  is,  that  the  progress  of  living  things  has  been  the 
result  of  a  struggle  for  existence,  with  the  resulting  sur- 
vival of  the  fittest ;  that  is,  of  the  strongest,  and  the  grad- 
ual growth  and  differentiation  of  the  living  world  and 
of  human  society  in  consequence  of  this  struggle. 

He  was  not  himself  an  experimentalist.  He  thought 
the  process  went  on  so  slowly,  that  it  was  cumulative, 
and  took  such  a  long  time  to  be  accomplished,  that  it 
would  be  foolish  to  try  to  experiment  himself  to  see 
whether  this  struggle  and  its  effects  could  be  actually 
demonstrated.  Patient  workers  since  his  day  have  forged 
a  chain  of  evidence  that  has  shown  to  the  world  at  large 
that  it  is  possible  to  question  the  force  of  the  dogma  that 
dominated  the  industrial  development  of  the  last  century, 
and  that  has  been  one  of  the  great  factors  in  the  minds 
of  men  which  has  justified  the  modern  industrial  system 
as  right  because  it  is  according  to  nature,  as  Darwin 
taught,  and  which  has  also  underlain  the  thinking  of  the 
men  who  have  controlled  the  destinies  of  all  the  nations. 
It  was  embodied  in  the  books  of  Treitschke  and  Bern- 
hardi.  The  latter  makes  the  statement  that  no  nation  is 
entitled  to  existence  that  does  not  fight  for  it ;  that  war  is 
one  of  the  methods  of  national  progress  and  that  the  im- 
portant thing  is  merely  to  choose  the  right  time  when  you 
are  sure  to  win ;  that  that  is  the  method  of  national  ad- 
vancement. When  he  says  this,  he  is  not  speaking  of  the 
preservation  and  evolution  of  the  human  race,  of  the  peo- 
ple, but  of  national  advancement. 

Now,  since  the  time  of  Darwin's  teaching,  biological 
science  has  made  certain  discoveries,  which  have  given  us 
pause,  and  perhaps  led  to  a  different  opinion  as  to  the 
relative  importance  of  this  process  of  natural  selection  in 
nature  in  one  important  particular,  in  its  being  the  source 

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Addresses  World's  Social  Progress  Congress 

and  cause  of  the  evolution  of  life  and  of  man,  and  the 
fundamental  principle  leading  to  the  higher  forms  and 
types  of  life.  According  to  Darwin's  teaching,  evolution 
is  a  very  slow  process. - 

Now,  these  lines  of  development  in  recent  times  rest  on 
two  main  lines  of  discovery.  One  is  the  careful  analysis 
of  the  process  which  we  call  heredity,  and  the  other  a 
careful,  experimental  analysis  of  the  effects  of  the  en- 
vironment on  living  things ;  of  the  changes  which  it  pro- 
duces. 

In  the  first  place,  to  take  the  analysis  of  heredity.  The 
discovery  of  the  brilliant  aniline  dyes,  and  of  paraffine, 
etc.,  has  made  it  possible  to  magnify  plants  and  animals 
enormously  and  thus  see  the  processes  that  go  on  in  the 
living  substance.  It  has  thus  been  shown  that  all  living 
things  are  made  of  little  cheriiical  centers,  each  capable  of 
doing  work,  of  releasing  energy.  We  call  them  cells. 
They  have  a  chemical  center,  a  structural  center,  which  is 
different  from  the  material  around  it ;  it  is  a  center  of  the 
surrounding  parts,  with  complementary  qualities.  For 
instance,  one  has  a  positive  and  one  a  negative  electric 
pole,  and  the  interaction  between  this  center  and  the 
surrounding  substance  results  in  the  release  of  energy. 

All  plants  and  animals  start  from  one  single  cell,  which 
results  from  the  union  of  two  parent  cells.  If  you  pick 
out  the  little  center,  the  cell  will  disintegrate  and  die ;  it 
is  necessary  that  the  two  parts  should  both  be  present. 

The  two  parents  contribute  absolutely  equally  to  the 
single  cell  that  starts  life,  so  that  every  individual  is  a 
double,  made  up  of  two  complete  sets  of  little  structures, 
one  set  from  one  parent  and  one  from  the  other  parent, 
and  is  a  complex  of  both  lines  of  ancestry. 

When  these  little  sex  cells  are  formed,  they  are  not  al- 
ways alike,  even  when  they  are  formed  from  the  same 

138 


War  and  Social  Progress 

parents,  because  they  go  back  into  the  double  sets,  and 
pick  out,  as  it  were,  one  single  implement  from  the  double 
equipment.  They  will  take  this  characteristic  from  one 
parent,  and  one  from  the  other,  and  so  build  up  a  different 
character  from  either  parent,  and  that  is  why  children 
of  the  same  parents  are  unlike.  This  contributes  to  our 
appreciation  of  individuality.  All  persons  are  different 
from  one  another  unless  they  are  identical  twins,  and 
each  one  is  a  part  of  the  same  cell  and  has  the  same  equip- 
ment as  the  other.  This  is  the  scientific  foundation  of 
the  story  of  the  little  girl  who  told  her  mother  that  she 
had  had  two  baths  that  morning  and  her  twin  sister  none ; 
they  were  so  much  aHke  that  they  could  deceive  even 
their  own  mother. 

Organisms,  then,  are  doubles;  they  get  their  ancestry 
equally  from  both  parents. 

When  we  cross  two  unlike  individuals  and  unite  them 
in  a  hybrid  and  then  in  the  second  generation  that  hybrid 
again  distributes  the  qualities  from  its  two  parents,  it 
will  distribute  them  in  combinations  different  from  either 
parent. 

For  instance,  when  we  cross  these  two  different  colored 
strains  of  corn,  light  and  dark,  rough  and  smooth,  we 
get,  in  the  second  generation,  four  kinds  of  corn  instead 
of  the  two  which  we  started  with. 

Natural  selection  has  nothing  to  do  with  this ;  new  char- 
acteristics appear  in  nature  without  natural  selection. 
That  comes  in  afterward,  after  they  have  appeared,  and 
says  whether  they  may  live  or  not,  and  as  long  as  these 
new  kinds  stay  inside  the  dead  line  of  natural  selection, 
they  survive.  This  is  one  reason  why  we  get  new  things. 
They  have  got  these  new  qualities  out  of  the  substances 
from  which  they  are  formed.  We  don't  know  why  they 
have  them;  we  don't  know  why  one  has  the  qualities 

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Addresses  World's  Social  Progress  Congress 

which  it  has,  or  how  they  have  been  formed  out  of  the 
elements  of  which  it  is  composed.  When  in  heredity  we 
get  the  combinations,  we  can  predict  what  the  quaHties 
are  going  to  be,  but  not  how  they  will  combine. 

Natural  selection,  then,  does  not  afford  us  a  basis  for 
the  development  of  new  forms  of  life  by  heredity. 

In  another  way,  nature  is  changing  because  of  her  sen- 
sitiveness to  the  surroundings.  It  is  a  fundamental  char- 
acteristic of  living  substances  that  they  are  sensitive  to 
their  surroundings,  marvelously  sensitive. 

To  give  an  illustration  of  the  extreme  subtlety  of  that 
sensitiveness.  If  you  take  a  guinea  pig  and  plant  in  its 
body  some  germs  which  have  never  lived  in  its  body  or 
any  of  its  ancestors,  they  will  gradually  die  out.  The 
body  of  a  guinea  pig  is  sensitive  to  the  introduction  of 
foreign  substances,  and  will  produce  a  poison  against 
them,  even  although  its  ancestors  never  did. 

Now,  all  this  has  a  very  important  bearing  on  the  ques- 
tion of  war.  I  will  illustrate  what  I  mean  by  an  example 
of  a  hybridization  between  a  gray  and  a  white  mouse. 
We  get  a  gray  mouse,  but  it  forms  its  sex  cells  either 
gray  or  white ;  they  have  a  double  charge,  gray  of  white, 
never  both,  and  so  when  they  meet,  they  meet  according 
to  the  same  ratio,  and  in  the  second  generation  there  is 
one  gray  mouse,  one  white,  and  two  mixed.  Human 
traits  also  follow  this  law.  There  are  some  people  whom 
we  call  geniuses ;  some  have,  for  example  special  mathe- 
matical ability,  and  some  other  forms  of  genius.  So  that 
if  two  persons,  one  with  such  ability  and  one  without  it, 
mate,  their  children  will  none  of  them  have  that  ability, 
because  the  absence  of  such  ability  is  dominant  over  the 
presence  of  it,  just  as  the  white  color  disappears  when 
gray  is  present.  In  the  same  way  the  absence  of  mathe- 
matical ability  dominates,  when  it  is  mated  with  mathe- 

140 


War  and  Social  Progress 

matical  ability.  But  when  the  children  of  such  a  mating 
show  no  such  ability,  yet  of  their  offspring  in  the  follow- 
ing generation,  one  will  have  no  such  ability,  one  will 
have  it,  and  there  will  be  two  who  can  transmit  it,  but 
cannot  express  it. 

Now,  what  will  happen  to  the  European  countries  when 
they  wage  war  with  machinery,  and  send  their  men  with 
mechanical  ability  into  battle  to  be  exterminated,  what 
is  the  next  generation  going  to  do  to  supply  the  type  of 
individual  in  the  community  that  is  needed  for  its  mechan- 
ical work?  They  cannot  be  made  to  order.  Mrs.  Harri- 
man  has  endowed  an  institution  for  the  study  of  genetics, 
and  that  institute  has  been  studying  the  lines  of  descent 
of  human  qualities,  and  they  have  demonstrated  that  most 
human  qualities  are  hereditary ;  f  eeble-mindedness  and 
other  human  defects,  color  blindness,  six-fingeredness,  the 
tendency  to  have  a  white  lock  of  hair,  imperfections  of 
stature,  a  tendency  toward  certain  diseases,  musical  ca- 
pacity, mechanical  capacity — these  are  all  hereditary. 

How  is  war  going  to  act  on  these  hereditary  traits? 
What  is  going  to  be  done  to  the  human  stock?  What 
types  are  picked  out  by  war  for  destruction?  Does  it 
pick  out  the  weakling  and  eliminate  that  type?  It  does, 
to  some  extent.  On  account  of  the  hardships  in  the 
homes  of  Europe,  many  a  weakling  will  be  sent  to  an  early 
grave.  But  the  battlefield  picks,  not  the  weak,  but  the 
strong,  and  especially  men  with  a  capacity  for  leadership. 
The  total  of  deaths  of  officers  is  exceedingly  heavy.  Also 
the  total  of  men  of  mechanical  ability  is  very  high  because 
war  to-day  is  a  war  of  machines,  of  submarines  and  battle 
ships  and  rapid  cruisers  and  aeroplanes,  machine  guns, 
and  automobiles — of  every  device  that  man  can  invent  to 
destroy  human  life  by  machinery  and  explosives.  What 
type  of  man  is  necessary  to  run  these  machines?    Every- 

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Addresses  World* s  Social  Progress  Congress 

body  knows  that  not  every  man  can  run  these  compHcated 
devices.  When  the  Germans  made  up  their  aerial  corps, 
they  went  into  every  factory  in  Germany  and  said,  ''Who 
is  your  best  and  most  reliable  mechanic?  we  want  him." 
And  so  he  was  enlisted  for  as  long  as  they  could  use  him. 
Their  aerial  corps  of  thirty-five  hundred  men  was  made 
up  of  the  very  best  and  finest  mechanics,  taken  out  of  the 
best  factories. 

Mechanical  capacity  runs  in  families.  If  you  destroy 
half  of  these  families,  the  male  stock,  you  will  inevitably 
reduce  that  element  in  society  to  a  proportional  extent. 
Doctor  Jordan  has  referred  to  this  in  his  address. 

We  have  in  the  United  States  some  five  hundred  thou- 
sand feeble-minded  persons,  some  of  them  just  barely 
competent  to  take  care  of  themselves,  some  of  them  not 
able.  We  have  thousands  of  insane,  thousands  deaf, 
dumb,  and  blind,  thousands  in  our  penitentiaries  and  in 
hospitals ;  three  or  four  per  cent  of  the  human  population 
is  appreciably  imperfect  physically,  and  it  would  be  hard 
for  most  of  us  to  pass  a  thoroughly  first-class  physical  ex- 
amination ;  we  all  have  some  defects.  What  does  war 
take?  Does  it  take  this  weakling  stock?  No;  it  leaves 
it  all  at  home ;  if  it  did  take  this  stock,  they  would  all  ap- 
pear on  the  pension  rolls  later.  Every  defective  man  of 
that  sort  is  excluded,  unless  it  becomes  necessary  to  take 
even  the  men  of  sixty-five  and  fathers  of  five  children, 
as  is  now  being  done  in  some  of  the  countries.  These 
men  of  imperfect  qualities  are  left  behind  to  be  the  fathers 
of  the  future  generations  of  Europe.  Suppose  you  give 
them  just  three  per  cent  of  an  advantage  over  the  other 
half  which  is  more  capable,  what  is  the  effect  going  to  be 
in  twenty-nine  generations?  That  the  weaker  stock  will 
form  three- fourths  of  the  population,  if  this  is  a  true 
interpretation  of  the  biological  facts.    The  effect  of  war 

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War  and  Social  Progress 

will  tend  to  eliminate  from  the  human  stock  the  stronger, 
the  more  courageous,  the  more  inventive  type — such  men, 
for  example,  as  Lincoln  Beachey.  But  modern  European 
civilization  is  built  about  the  type  of  men  who  can  handle 
machinery,  who  are  inventive. 

In  one  other  very  important  particular  this  war  is  go- 
ing to  leave  its  record  on  the  human  stock.  I  spoke,  a 
moment  ago,  of  the  second  great  line  of  biological  investi- 
gation. The  environment  changes  human  stock.  It  was 
long  held  that  the  use  or  disuse  of  human  organs  made 
a  change  in  the  human  stock.  Darwin  held  that  the  char- 
acteristics which  the  individual  acquired  were  inherited 
by  his  children.  Not  all  of  them  are,  because  a  lot  of 
them  merely  affect  the  body,  which  is  the  carrier  of  the 
sex  cells  which  perpetuate  the  living  substance.  For  in- 
stance, in  one  of  the  great  agricultural  States,  they  en- 
deavored to  improve  the  breed  of  fowls,  and  for  that  pur- 
pose they  picked  out  every  hen  that  laid  two  hundred  eggs 
a  year.  After  twelve  years  they  found  that  the  descend- 
ants of  these  picked  fowls  only  laid  an  average  of  one 
hundred  and  ninteen  eggs  a  year,  while  the  average  fowl 
lays  one  hundred  and  twenty-five.  They  had  produced  no 
change.  But  they  found  that  if,  instead  of  taking  a  mis- 
cellaneous selection  from  a  miscellaneous  stock,  they 
looked  out  for  certain  famihes  of  fowls  and  picked  them, 
then  they  really  began  to  change  the  stock.  If  you  select 
the  larger  half  of  any  stock,  the  offspring  will  show  the 
whole  range  of  variation ;  but  if  you  go  to  a  family  that 
has  particular  forms,  you  will  get  that  common  quality 
reproduced. 

But  it  is  possible  to  change  that  hereditary  make-up, 
which  may  be  revealed  by  this  selection.  It  is  possible  for 
the  environment  to  change  the  individual;  but  not  in  the 
way  that  Darwin  thought.    He  thought  the  acquired  char- 

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Addresses  World* s  Social  Progress  Congress 

acteristics  of  the  individual  were  inherited.  Modern  sci- 
ence declares  that  the  offspring  may  be  changed  by  en- 
vironment, but  not  always  in  the  same  way  that  the  parent 
is  changed.  If  there  comes  a  heavy  frost  in  early  spring 
where  potato  bugs  are  abundant,  you  will  find  during  the 
summer  a  lot  of  little,  pale  dwarfs.  They  are  changed  in 
their  hereditary  make-up  by  the  action  of  the  sudden 
shock  and  chill  to  the  parents.  Stimulated  by  this  ob- 
servation, Professor  Tower  has  been  raising  potato  bugs 
in  green  houses,  where  he  can  hammer  them  day  and 
night  by  changes  of  temperature,  and  by  giving  them 
these  shocks  just  at  the  time  when  the  sex  cells  pick  out 
their  equipment  and  are  in  a  sensitive  condition.  The 
result  is  that  if  they  are  hit  hard,  somehow  they  are 
changed,  and  in  this  way  you  get  a  new  pattern  in  the  off- 
spring. In  this  way  it  is  possible  to  take  the  potato  beetle 
and  shock  it  and  get  three  different  kinds  of  beetles,  illus- 
trated on  this  chart,  a  little,  yellow  dwarf,  a  pale  dwarf, 
and  a  fully-equipped  type,  and  they  all  breed  true  after- 
ward. We  have  changed  them  in  a  single  generation  and 
permanently,  and  natural  selection  had  nothing  to  do  with 
it.  Natural  selection  will  determine  which  shall  survive, 
perhaps,  but  it  had  nothing  to  do  with  the  origin  of  these 
new  types. 

He  has  shown  that  he  can  always  take  these  potato 
beetles,  and  shock  them  in  this  way,  and  thus,  by  the  en- 
vironment, change  the  individual,  and  also  change  the 
race ;  and  the  greater  the  shock  the  greater  the  change. 

Is  the  human  stock  also  susceptible  to  the  environment  ? 
If  we  take  the  honey  bee,  after  a  day  of  hard  work,  and 
examine  the  cells  of  its  brain,  we  find  them  collapsed, 
shrunken,  and  exhausted.  A  guinea  pig  subjected  to  sur- 
gical shock  under  an  anesthetic,  exhibits  shrunken  and 
exhausted  cells.    The  human  brain,  after  shock,  presum- 

144 


War  and  Social  Progress 

ably  shows  the  same  thing.  The  impact  of  the  shock  goes 
to  the  central  nervous  system,  and  then  back  to  all  parts 
of  the  body,  including  thekflsexual  organs,  which  are  ex- 
ceedingly susceptible  to  changed  conditions. 

For  instance,  take  a  wild  animal,  and  domesticate  it, 
and  nine  times  out  of  ten  it  will  not  breed,  or  its  breeding 
will  be  disturbed.  The  mallard  duck  will  lay  many  more 
eggs  in  captivity  than  when  wild. 

An  illustration  of  the  effect  of  such  changes  is  shown 
clearly  in  the  effects  of  alcohol  on  guinea  pigs.  Experi- 
menters have  taken  stock  of  healthy  ancestry,  subjected 
one  part  to  the  fumes  of  alcohol  for  forty  minutes  a  day. 
The  pigs  become  slightly  intoxicated  in  that  time,  but  they 
remain  hale  and  hearty  and  die  of  old  age,  just  as  the  man 
who  uses  alcohol  for  sixty  years  sometimes  does.  But  of 
their  offspring,  eighty  per  cent  are  still  bom  at  birth,  or 
epileptic  or  runts,  and  the  two  latter  transmit  these  qual- 
ities to  their  offspring.  Now,  I  am  not  lecturing  on  tem- 
perance, but  on  the  effect  of  the  war.  The  alcohol  affected 
the  sense  organs  of  the  guinea  pigs  and  was  transmitted 
to  the  sex  cells;  they  were  modified  by  the  stimulus,  and 
they  threw  a  new  pattern  and  changed  the  hereditary 
character  of  the  guinea  pig.  And  it  doesn't  make  any 
difference  which  parent  is  drunk.  It  is  significant  that 
in  Switzerland  there  are  two  seasons  of  the  year  when  a 
larger  part  of  the  feeble-minded  children  are  born,  and 
those  periods  are  nine  months  after  two  festivals  at 
which  there  is  much  drinking. 

What  has  all  this  to  do  with  this  war?  War  is  one  of 
the  greatest,  the  most  terrible  stimulants  to  the  human 
race  that  has  ever  happened.  The  shock  of  war  is  being 
pounded  upon  millions  of  men,  both  in  the  field  and  at 
home,  and  the  fathers  and  mothers  of  the  generation  to 
come  are  being  stimulated  by  the  shock  of  war  in  a  ter- 

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Addresses  World's  Social  Progress  Congress 

rible  way,  and  the  results  of  these  shocks  to  the  central 
nervous  system  will  be  transmitted  to  the  next  generation, 
and  will  write  their  record.  It  is  a  law  of  nature,  andlio 
diplomacy  or  charity  will  enable  us  to  avoid  it. 

If  all  this  is  true,  if  war  does  thus  deteriorate  the  race, 
why  hasn't  it  destroyed  the  race  before?  There  is  some 
reason  to  think  that  Rome  fell,  not  because  of  the  hook 
worm  or  malaria,  or  what  not,  but  because  they  sacri- 
ficed their  fine  young  men  in  the  colonies.  And  Spain 
suffered  for  the  same  reason,  and  Great  Britain  also  be- 
cause they  depleted  their  stock  in  war  and  conquest.  Nor 
will  this  stop  with  the  war  itself ;  for,  as  Doctor  Jordan 
said,  this  war  must  be  paid  for,  the  interest  at  least,  un- 
less the  debt  is  repudiated.  It  is  going  to  be  wrung  from 
labor ;  it  will  mean  longer  hours  of  labor  for  women  and 
children,  and  for  the  fathers  and  mothers,  so  that  the 
effect  will  be  spread  over  many  generations — war  will 
write  its  record  in  the  stock  of  the  human  race  for  gener- 
ations to  come. 

Is  there  any  actual  evidence  that  war  does  thus  affect 
the  children?  There  is  a  little.  In  France,  after  the 
Napoleonic  period,  twenty  years  after  the  heaviest  mili- 
tary campaigns,  there  was  a  sudden  drop  in  the  height  of 
Frenchmen  entering  the  army.  Napoleon  started  with 
five  feet  and  four  inches,  and  it  dropped  to  five  feet,  one 
inch.  Since  then,  France  has  gained  one  inch  of  its  lost 
height,  but  it  has  taken  twenty  years  to  do  it. 

There  came  a  sudden  change  in  the  quality  of  military 
recruits ;  they  were  fewer  in  number  and  inferior  in  type ; 
the  percentage  of  physical  defects  showed  a  marked  in- 
crease, quite  in  excess  of  the  persistence  in  the  decline 
of  height.  That  is,  the  facts  indicate  that  children  born 
in  the  time  of  the  Napoleonic  wars  were  physically  im- 
perfect to  a  greater  degree  than  usual. 

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War  and  Social  Progress 

In  Prussia,  during  the  war  of  1870-75,  the  death  rate 
of  the  children  under  five  years  of  age  showed  an  increase 
bf  sixteen  per  cent  over  that  of  the  time  before  and  after 
the  war.  Why,  if  this  means  anything,  it  was  because 
parents,  in  the  period  of  the  war,  were  under  severe 
mental  and  physical  strain,  and  the  shock  of  that  environ- 
ment of  military  activity,  resulted  in  the  deterioration  of 
the  race. 

There  is  just  one  Httle,  bright  spot  in  the  whole  busi- 
ness, and  that  is  this  third  beetle  here.  That  beetle  isn't 
a  bad  one ;  the  others  are  smaller  and  weaker  and  not  such 
virile  types ;  but  it  is  possible  that  the  shock  of  war  might 
produce  some  virile  types  as  well ;  it  increases  the  vari- 
ation and  may  give  us  some  compensation.  That  is  a  pos- 
sibility that  we  must  recognize,  but  it  is  a  desperately 
hard  way  to  get  it  when  there  may  be  better  ones. 

There  is  one  other  fact  that  comes  to  us  from  biology 
that  has  a  bearing  upon  war,  and  that  is  that  war  is  in 
direct  opposition  to  one  very  fundamental  principle  in  the 
structure  and  evolution  of  animals.  We  find,  just  in  pro- 
portion as  the  nervous  system  becomes  more  complex, 
that  there  comes  to  be  more  and  more  social  life.  The 
honey  bee  or  ant  has,  in  proportion  to  its  weight,  a  very 
large  nervous  system,  and  they  have  a  highly  developed 
social  life.  Now,  among  all  living  things,  man  has  the 
most  highly-developed,  nervous  system,  and  the  most 
highly-perfected  type ;  it  is  like  a  switch-board  in  a  com- 
plicated telephone  system,  so  that  every  part  is  in  com- 
munication with  every  other  part,  so  that  it  is  possible 
for  man  to  establish  a  wide  range  of  relations  and  to 
build  up  a  system  of  social  inter-relations  because  of 
the  physical  structure  of  his  brain.  But  man  has  no 
saber  teeth ;  he  has  no  claws  to  scratch  with.  Nature  has 
given  him  none  of  the  organs  of  battle  built  into  his  body. 

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Addresses  World's  Social  Progress  Congress 

He  has  a  brain  for  social  life,  but  he  is  now  turning  that 
brain  into  an  engine  of  destruction.  In  other  words,  he 
has  reverted  to  the  time  of  the  tiger;  he  has  gone  back. 
The  principle  of  mutual  aid  lies  at  the  foundation  of  the 
evolution  of  the  family;  it  is  the  fundamental  basis  of 
human  society,  and  war  is  a  direct  contradiction  of  the 
whole  principle  of  human  aid,  and  thus  is  against  nature, 
if  we  read  nature  aright. 

What,  then,  should  be  our  attitude  toward  war?  I 
should  teach  biology,  and  keep  on  teaching  it,  in  our  pub- 
lic schools;  these  lessons  should  be  taught  to  every  one 
of  our  children;  this  knowledge  should  be  in  the  posses- 
sion of  every  one.  If  every  boy  will  follow  through  the 
lessons  taught  by  the  sweet  corn  and  the  primroses  in 
the  garden,  he  would  be  more  careful  of  his  own  stock ; 
and  people  would  be  more  careful  about  war  if  they  knew 
the  lessons  modern  biology  is  teaching. 

I  will  not  take  the  time  to  tell  you  what  we  might  do  to 
stop  war,  for  Doctor  Jordan  has  already  told  you.  There 
is,  however,  one  aspect  of  this  matter  which  I  have  not 
touched  upon,  and  that  is  a  question  of  psychology.  We 
are  all  fighters,  by  instinct;  it  is  one  of  our  most  valu- 
able qualities.  We  have  this  instinct  to  defend  ourselves 
and  rise  to  a  contest ;  let  us  turn  this  force  into  other  di- 
rections, into  art  and  literature  and  sport — even  prize 
fighting  rather  than  war.  Let  us  maintain  this  spirit,  but 
at  the  same  time  direct  it  in  the  right  way,  and  regard 
war  as  Richard  Le  Gallienne  has  wonderfully  expressed 
it  in  his  poem: 

"W^AR. 
"I  abhor, 

And  yet  how  sweet 
The  sound  along  the  marching  street, 

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M^ar  and  Social  Progress 

Of  drum  and  life,  and  I  forget 
Broken,  old  mothers,  and  the  whole 
Dark  butchery  without  a  soul. 

*' Without  a  soul — save  this  bright  drink 
Of  heady  music,  sweet  as  hell ; 
And  even  my  peace-abiding  feet 
Go  marching  with  the  marching  feet. 
For  yonder,  yonder,  goes  the  fife, 
And  what  care  I  for  human  life! 
The  tears  fill  my  astonished  eyes 
And  my  full  heart  is  like  to  break ; 
And  yet  'tis  all  embannered  lies — 
A  dream  those  drummers  make. 

**Oh,  it  is  wickedness  to  clothe 
Yon  hideous  grinning  thing  that  stalks 
Hidden  in  music,  like  a  queen 
That  in  a  garden  of  glory  walks, 
Till  good  men  love  the  thing  they  loathe ! 

"Art,  thou  hast  many  infamies. 
But  not  an  infamy  like  this. 
Oh,  snap  the  fife  and  still  the  drum 
And  show  the  monster  as  she  is." 


149 


Chapter  XL 
''KULTUR"  AS  AGAINST  CIVILIZATION. 

BY   EDWARD   BENJAMINE   KREHBIEL. 

I  notice  that  the  chairman  very  wisely  refused  to  give 
me  a  subject;  there  was  some  misunderstanding  as  to 
what  it  should  be,  and  so  I  have  assigned  myself  the  sub- 
ject of  "Kultur  (or  Culture)  as  Against  CiviHzation." 

I  cannot  very  well  refrain  from  reminding  you  that  one 
of  the  reasons,  it  is  said,  why  the  Germans  spell  *'kultur" 
with  a  "k"  is  because  England  has  control  of  all  the  **C's" ; 
but  the  other  word  that  I  am  also  to  speak  of  "civiliza- 
tion," though  it  begins  with  "c,"  is  the  monopoly  of  no 
one. 

What  do  we  mean  by  this  term  "kultur"  that  so  many 
nations  are  fighting  about?  Ordinarily,  when  we  con- 
ceive of  our  position  in  life — we,  as  Americans,  others  as 
Germans,  others  as  French,  or  English — we  conceive  of 
our  state  as  being  independent,  self-sufficient,  superior  to 
all  others.  The  people  of  every  nation  believe  that  they 
have  peculiar  virtues  in  their  state,  virtues  which  because 
they  are  superior,  ought  to  be  spread  abroad,  which  are 
worth  fighting  for,  worth  imposing  upon  other  people, 
worth  compelling  them  to  accept  if  they  will  not  do  so 
voluntarily.  They  call  that  kultur.  Now,  as  a  matter 
of  fact,  this  conception  that  we  have,  that  we  are  suf- 
ficient to  ourselves,  that  we  live  a  really  national  existence, 
that  our  existence  is  peculiar,  or  at  least  superior,  needs 
to  be  considered. 

Is  this  true  economically  ?    The  capital  of  the  world  is 
not  confined  to  the  bounds  of  a  state ;  it  pays  no  heed  to 

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Kultur  as  Against  Cwilisation 

them.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  one  of  the  first  habits  of 
money  is  to  seek  profits,  interest,  dividends ;  it  doesn't  ask 
whether  it  is  being  invested  in  the  homeland  or  abroad, 
but  what  per  cent  it  is  going  to  make.  And  if  it  finds 
that  an  investment  is  more  profitable  in  a  foreign  country, 
to  the  foreign  country  it  goes,  no  matter  whether  the  Ger- 
man or  American  eagle  is  stamped  upon  it.  It  will  seek 
dividends  in  Beluchistan,  if  the  investment  pays.  Capital 
ignores  national  boundary  lines. 

Interest  follows  the  investment,  likewise,  and  labor  is 
compelled  to  follow  also,  because  if  a  man  here  invests 
his  capital  abroad,  he  is  very  likely  to  compel  labor  to  fol- 
low it.  Take,  for  example,  the  Japanese  alien  land  law ; 
when  the  legislature  in  CaHfornia  has  succeeded  in  ex- 
cluding this  cheap  labor,  American  capital  will  go  to 
Japan.  The  same  kind  of  thing  has  occurred  repeatedly 
in  history,  but  I  haven't  time  to  dwell  upon  it. 

Let  me  go  on.  Exactly  as  investment  goes  abroad,  la- 
bor goes  to  seek  it,  and  ignores  international  boundary 
lines.  One  of  the  most  expert  speakers  I  ever  heard, 
one  of  the  finest  minds  I  ever  met,  was  a  laboring  man. 
I  was  speaking  before  a  SociaHst  meeting,  and  in  the 
course  of  the  meeting,  a  man  arose.  I  found  out  after- 
wards that  he  was  a  structural  steel  worker ;  that  he  had 
traveled  all  over  the  world  in  the  pursuit  of  his  trade,  get- 
ting his  day's  pay.  He  had  seen  far  more  of  the  world 
than  I  had  seen,  or  probably  ever  shall  see.  Such  a  case 
is  merely  typical ;  as  I  said,  labor  ignores  national  boun- 
dary lines. 

What  is  the  food  we  eat  ?  Tea  from  China,  coffee  from 
Mexico  or  South  America,  all  sorts  of  things  from  out- 
side the  country.  The  silk  and  woolen  that  we  wear  is 
manufactured  abroad.  There  is  no  end  to  the  things  that 
we  eat  and  drink  and  wear  that  come  from  without  the 

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Addresses  World's  Social  Progress  Congress 

boundaries  of  the  country.  And  therefore,  actually,  when 
we  sit  down  to  table,  we  do,  though  ignorantly  to  be  sure, 
eat  an  international  meal,  and  we  wear  international  cloth- 
ing. I  have  sometimes  been  disposed  to  say  that  I  have 
shoes  of  French  calf,  and  a  suit  of  English  woolen,  a  cra- 
vat of  Chinese  silk,  and  a  hair  cut  made  in  Germany ;  in 
my  appearance  I  am  international. 

The  economic  life  in  America,  therefore,  is  not  national, 
Neither  is  the  intellectual  life,  because  the  thoughts  you 
think  are  not  American.  The  news  that  you  read  is  world 
wide.  The  philosophy  that  you  study,  the  science  that 
you  cultivate,  the  arts  you  admire,  are  international ;  they 
are  not  American.  What  would  become  of  medicine  if 
we  first  of  all  had  to  discover  if  the  germ  of  disease  be- 
longed to  our  nationality  ?  We  pay  no  more  heed  to  that 
than  the  germs  do.  Cholera  never  asks  about  the  Amer- 
ican boundary  line  and  whether  it  may  come  over.  The 
result  is  that  the  men  interested  in  medicine  are  compelled 
to  forget  that  there  are  national  boundary  lines,  and  be- 
come international  in  their  activities. 

And  science;  what  would  you  say  if  the  physicist  were 
to  inquire  whether  the  law  of  gravitation  sailed  under  the 
British  flag?  It  would  be  absurd,  of  course;  yet  there 
seems  to  be  a  conception  that  we  have  certain  national 
qualities,  superior  to  every  one  else,  and  that  we  call 
kultur. 

Economic  life  is  not  national;  intellectual  life  is  not 
national.  What  is  national  ?  Why,  political  life.  But  the 
state  is  a  juridicial  entity;  it  is  an  abstraction,  a  legal 
hypothesis,  and  this  is  the  thing  which  constitutes  what 
is  left  of  national  existence.  If  I  ask  you  if  you  are  a  pa- 
triot, in  what  does  your  patriotism  consist?  Why,  in 
loyalty  to  this  political,  juridicial  entity,  which  does  not 
really  correspond  to  anything  in  your  economic  or  intel- 

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Kiiltur  as  Against  Civilisation 

lectiial  life.  You  are  patriotic  to  one  portion  of  your 
being,  but  unpatriotic  in  some  of  the  best  features  of  your 
life. 

You  may  say  this  is  not  fair.  Well,  I  will  admit  that. 
You  are  not  really  loyal  just  to  the  conception  of  the 
state  as  an  abstract  legal  something,  but  to  those  prin- 
ciples which  are  supposed  to  reside  behind  your  state,  and 
which  are  called  the  "culture  state."  It  is  your  form  of 
government,  your  form  of  business,  your  embodiment  of 
your  conceptions  of  right  and  wrong,  your  conceptions 
of  social  propriety,  your  ethical  conceptions;  these  are 
our  kultur.  To  these  we  give  our  adhesion;  it  is  these 
which  inspire  our  patriotism. 

Now,  there  is  no  denying  the  existence  of  such  a  cul- 
tural state ;  but  how  does  it  work  ?  That  is  the  important 
thing.  How  does  it  deliver  its  message  to  man  and  influ- 
ence life?  Here  are  the  Germans,  the  English,  the  Rus- 
sians, all  of  them  in  the  war,  and  all  the  neutrals  who  are 
out  of  the  war,  who  believe  in  their  peculiar  kultur, 
which  they  think  ought  to  prevail.  How  are  they  going 
to  make  it  prevail?  The  question  is,  how  does  this  kul- 
tur affect  life;  wholesomely?  There  are  two  possible 
modes  of  regarding  the  matter.  You  may  put  this  kultur 
under  hot-house  conditions;  you  may  exclude  all  foreign 
elements  which  might  cause  it  to  deteriorate;  you  may 
keep  it  clear,  pure,  stimulated  by  rivalry  with  some  other 
kultur  unit.  The  Germans  will  tell  the  people  that  they 
must  stand  together,  or  they  will  be  suppressed  by  the 
Russians ;  and  the  English  will  be  told  that  if  they  don't 
titand  together  against  the  attacks  from  without,  their 
kultur  will  disappear,  and  will  be  overcome  by  the  Ger- 
man. So,  for  the  sake  of  procuring  the  proper  heat  in 
the  hot-house,  you  use  some  other  kultur  unit  as  a  scare, 
which  is  going  to  extirpate  your  kultur  unless  you  are 

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Addresses  World's  Social  Progress  Congress 

strong  enough  to  keep  it  out.  You  are  loyal,  you  say,  to 
those  high  principles,  which  are  superior  to  all  other  kul- 
turs  on  earth. 

There  is  still  another  view.  That  view  is  this ;  that 
even  after  a  state  has  succeeded  in  defeating  another,  it 
hasn't  suppressed  its  kultur.  Did  the  Germans,  though 
they  absolutely  overthrew  the  Roman  empire  as  a  geo- 
graphical unit,  destroy  their  culture,  or  the  Greek  cul- 
ture? Did  the  English,  when  they  invaded  the  British 
Islands,  absolutely  obliterate  the  preceding  elements  ?  Not 
at  all.  If  these  elements  were  worth  while  at  the  begin- 
ning, if  they  were  fit,  they  were  going  to  live,  whether 
under  one  flag  or  the  other.  They  were  fit  to  survive; 
they  could  not  be  suppressed  by  force  of  arms.  You  can- 
not suppress  mental  ability  or  a  conscience  by  force  of 
arms. 

So,  then,  inasmuch  as  this  doesn't  seem  to  work,  why 
wouldn't  this  kultur  propagate  itself  quite  as  well,  if 
there  were  not  these  conditions  of  rivalry  between  Ger- 
many and  England,  Russia  and  Austria?  Why  wouldn't 
the  kultur  work  itself  into  human  life  and  take  its  place 
regardless  of  national  boundary  lines? 

New  England  has  been  a  portion  of  the  United  States 
ever  since  it  was  founded ;  yet  when  you  go  to  New  Eng- 
land you  still  find  characteristics  of  the  New  Englander; 
they  have  not  been  lost.  The  Californian  is  different 
from  the  New  Englander ;  he  contributes  his  qualities,  his 
temper  to  the  structure  of  the  nation,  and  his  kultur  is 
not  endangered  by  the  fact  that  he  does  not  appeal  to 
arms  to  defend  them. 

To  be  sure  it  has  been  contended  that  this  rivalry  is 
fundamental;  that  the  day  you  remove  that  element,  the 
day  that  the  foreign  country  ceases  to  compete  against 
you,  that  day  you  grow  lax,  easy  going,  you  degenerate, 

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Kiiltur  as  Against  Civilisation 

and  presently  as  a  people  you  pass  away.  The  motive 
power  of  civilization,  of  progress,  is  inherent  in  strife  be- 
tween two  or  many  units.  Then,  there  is  the  other  view, 
which  contends  that  a  country  like  the  United  States  can 
keep  strong  and  powerful  by  the  sheer  fact  that  it  has 
within  itself  the  motives  of  progress;  in  other  words, 
that  it  carries  the  power  within  itself,  because  each  of  us 
is  competing  with  every  other  in  the  state,  and  for  that 
reason  we  are  quick  to  seize  and  grasp  good  ideas,  and 
are  all  of  us  stimulated  to  our  highest  activity,  and  to 
growth,  and  our  nation  moves  forward,  and  would  if 
there  were  no  English  or  German  or  Japanese. 

It  is  very  hard  to  say  which  of  these  two  views  is  right ; 
whether  we  need  the  rivalry  of  states,  or  whether  there 
is  sufficient  motive  power  within  the  state.  Personally,  I 
believe  the  latter  is  true.  I  believe  the  vitality  of  the 
American  people  is  sufficient  to  keep  us  as  much  alive  as 
we  need  to  be,  without  the  need  of  foreign  competition. 
If  that  competition  were  world-wide  between  individuals, 
I  think  that  competition  would  be  adequate  to  give  us  all 
the  motive  power  for  progress  we  could  ever  use,  without 
this  national  competition. 

There  is  still  another  feature  that  needs  to  be  dwelt 
upon  with  a  great  d^al  of  care.  The  cultural  elements, 
which  are  confined  to  the  state  and  represent  the  state,  are 
not  really  a  true  picture  of  the  life  we  have  to-day.  I 
have  tried  to  show  that  you,  in  your  own  being,  have  a 
conflict  between  interests ;  there  is  this  adhesion  to  your 
kultur,  your  national  civilization;  and  then  there  is  the 
fact  that  you  think  and  live  as  a  world  being.  In  your 
political  life  you  are  national ;  in  your  economic  and  intel- 
lectual life,  you  are  international.  You  can't  help  it. 
There  is  a  struggle,  a  conflict.  I  call  this  the  struggle 
between  kultur  and  civilization,  because  I  conceive  that 

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Addresses  World's  Social  Progress  Congress 

the  elements,  which  I  call  the  chief  things  of  civilization, 
are  those  elements  of  international  relationship  and  inter- 
national co-operation.  That  state  which  is  wholly  exclu- 
sive is  not  called  a  civilized  state.  When  do  you  say 
Japan  became  civilized?  Why,  the  day  that  she  stopped 
her  policy  of  seclusion;  the  day  that  she  began  to  inter- 
act with  other  nations.  That  day  she  became  what  you 
call  a  civilized  nation,  depending  for  her  progress  in  great 
measure  upon  the  wholesome  inter-relations  with  other 
peoples. 

Turkey  is  not  a  civilized  state ;  China  remained  a  back- 
ward state  until  the  day  that  she  adopted  international 
relations,  and  now  she  is  waking  up,  but  is  still  to  become 
really  civilized. 

These  two  factors,  then,  kultur,  representing  one's 
home  life,  as  I  may  call  it ;  civilization,  representing  inter- 
national life.  I  want  to  bring  them  both  before  you  for 
the  sake  of  comparison.  If  a  state  has  kultur,  it  is  con- 
fronted with  the  question  of  how  it  is  to  use  it.  Shall  it 
go  out  and  impose  it  upon  another  state  by  force?  If  it 
does,  in  that  process  it  loses  a  great  many  things  that  are 
a  part  of  civilization.  That  is  to  say,  its  inter-relations 
with  other  countries  are  cut  by  its  attempt  to  impose  its 
kultur. 

There  is  a  war  in  Europe  now,  for  the  sake  of  kultur. 
This  war  has  resulted  in  many  acts  which  we  should  call 
vicious  in  civil  life,  and  these  things  leave  their  effects 
upon  men's  minds,  if  not  upon  their  health.  It  has  been 
acknowledged  that  the  Russian  incursion  into  East  Prus- 
sia has  left  a  blood  taint  of  disease  upon  the  race  which 
it  will  take  four  or  five  generations  to  stamp  out.  Civili- 
zation is  being  set  back  for  the  advancement  of  what  is 
called  kultur,  and  for  generations  people  will  have  to 
suffer  because  some  one  tried  to  advance  a  national  cul- 

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Kultur  as  Against  Civilization 

tare  element.  Can  the  cultural  element  be  advanced  in 
such  a  way  that  everybody  gains?  Can  that  element  at 
home  be  made  to  react  upon  the  world  in  a  wholesome 
fashion  ?  Could  we  not  have  the  same  effect  by  allowing 
it  to  spread  naturally  so  that  people  could  take  it  nat- 
urally? i\gain  I  say,  we  are  upon  a  speculative  basis. 
It  has  not  been  more  than  one  hundred  or  one  hundred 
and  fifty  years  since  the  world  became  economically  and 
intellectually  a  unit.  That  has  been  the  result  of  im- 
proved transportation  and  communication.  It  was  Doctor 
Bushnell  who  said  that  the  road  is  the  very  mark  of  civ- 
iHzation;  nothing  can  make  an  inroad  without  making  a 
road.  It  represents  the  transfer  of  activities  and  thoughts 
from  one  nation  to  another,  and  the  status  of  this  trans- 
portation is  an  evidence  of  what  we  call  civilization. 

What  do  we  call  kultur?  As  measured  in  terms  of 
architecture,  high  art,  music,  etc.,  is  it  any  less  because 
it  happens  to  be  outside  your  country  ?  On  the  contrary. 
There  is  a  kultur  which  you  may,  perhaps,  call  German, 
but  you  would  have  great  difficulty  in  defining  it.  There 
is  a  kultur  which  you  may  call  American,  and  you  will 
have  enormous  difficulty  in  distinguishing  it  from  EngHsh 
or  German  kultur.  But  suppose  you  could  do  so,  over 
and  above  all  these  divisions  there  is  yet  another  group, 
something  that  you  have  not  classified,  but  which  fits  into 
all  the  groups,  which  is  the  international  kultur,  or  civili- 
zation. This  is  the  new  thing,  the  coming  thing,  the  thing 
which  has  arrived,  and  you  to-day  see  in  the  great  strife 
between  the  cultural  factors  and  the  factors  of  civiliza- 
tion. Now  the  question  for  thinking  men  is  this,  Which 
will  we  choose,  and  why? 

It  is  not  enough  to  choose,  you  must  have  a  reason  for 
your  choice.  We  have  had  enough  of  hasty  choosing  in 
this  war;  people  are  too  ready  to  spring  to  conclusions. 

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Addresses  World's  Social  Progress  Congress 

As  a  plain  fact,  the  reasons  for  this  war  run  far  back  into 
history  and  back  into  ignorance.  The  reason  is  largely 
that  Europeans  are  still  under  the  conception  that  the 
national  life  is  something  apart  and  free  from  the  rest 
of  the  world,  and  are  not  conscious  of  the  truth  that  civil- 
ization is  gradually  tending  to  absorb  these  cultural  ele- 
ments of  the  different  states  and  make  them  the  common 
property  of  all  men,  and  that  process  can  be  promoted 
much  more  surely  by  other  methods  than  by  strife. 

Which  will  you  choose?  As  for  me,  I  want  to  recog- 
nize the  fact  that  not  only  here  are  culture  and  civiHza- 
tion,  mutually  exclusive  elements  striving  against  each 
other,  but  I  wish  to  announce  my  allegiance  to  civiHzation. 


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Chapter  XII. 
THE  FALLACIES  OF  WAR 

BY   WILLIAM    TRUFANT   FOSTER. 

When  I  was  traveling  in  Europe  a  few  years  ago,  I  fell 
in  with  a  number  of  young  men,  who  thought  that  I  was 
an  Englishman  and  treated  me  accordingly.  I  found  that 
they  had  no  respect  whatever  for  me,  did  not  wish  to 
associate  with  me,  and,  so  far  as  possible,  tried  not  to 
ride  in  the  same  car  with  me.  By  some  chance  they 
found  out  that  I  was  a  citizen  of  the  United  States,  and 
at  once  their  attitude  changed.  They  tried  to  apologize, 
and  said  that  of  course  I  understood  that  throughout 
their  school  days  they  had  been  taught  to  treat  an  English- 
man as  a  natural  enemy,  and  that  it  was  not  proper  for 
them  to  show  anything  but  scorn  for  an  Englishman. 

When  I  first  heard  of  the  outbreak  of  the  present  war, 
that  incident  in  my  travels  in  Europe  was  the  first  thing 
that  came  to  my  mind,  and  I  realized  that  the  war  was,  in 
a  measure,  what  the  entire  school  systems  of  Europe  had 
been  planning  for.  As  I  look  back  over  my  own 
school  experiences  in  the  United  States,  I  realize  that 
history,  as  it  was  taught  to  me,  was  largely  a  history  of 
the  glorification  of  war.  When  I  was  a  small  boy,  the 
only  heroes  were  heroes  of  the  battlefield,  and  the  history 
that  I  learned  was  largely  the  history  of  armies  and 
navies  and  battles  and  wars  and  treaties.  I  cannot  remem- 
ber, as  I  look  back  on  my  history  lessons,  that  there  had 
been  singled  out  at  all,  for  glorification,  such  men  as  have 
gone  into  fever-infested  districts  and  sacrificed  lives  in 
order  to  save  life;  but  those  who  have  been  held  up  as 

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Addresses  Worlds  Social  Progress  Congress 

models  for  the  boys  of  America  for  generations  have 
been  those  who  have  been  chiefly  successful  in  destroying 
life. 

It  seems  to  me,  therefore,  that  the  best  way  of  attack, 
with  the  most  permanent  guarantee  of  success,  and  which 
is  the  only  agency  whereby  we  may  reach  the  next  genera- 
tion, is  education ;  and  through  that  agency  we  must,  year 
in  and  year  out,  show  the  great  falsity  of  war. 

I  am  going  to  speak  to  you  now  for  only  eight  or  ten 
minutes,  and  in  that  time  I  am  going  to  mention  five  of 
the  great  fallacies  of  war.  They  are  all  familiar  to  you, 
and  I  need  not  dwell  upon  them.  I  mention  them  only 
to  say  this :  that  at  this  time,  when  Europe  is  in  conflict, 
it  is  particularly  important  that  we  should  not  be  led 
astray  by  those  whose  business  is  war,  by  those  whose 
income  depends  upon  the  perpetuation  of  war  and  upon 
the  manufacture  of  the  armaments  of  war.  Particularly 
now  we  should  not  be  misled  by  the  fallacies  of  war  and 
by  the  arguments  for  the  continuance  of  war  and  its 
accessories;  and  we  should  particularly  aim  to  bring 
to  the  next  generation  a  realization  of  the  absurdity  of 
these  arguments. 

The  first  fallacy  that  I  will  mention  is  that  there  is 
any  glory  in  war.  Sherman  has  described  it,  and  the 
glory  of  war  is  mere  moonshine.  Any  one  who  knows 
what  the  reality  of  war  is,  knows  that  there  is  no  glory 
in  it  whatever. 

Another  fallacy  is  that  war  is  in  any  way  necessary  to 
develop  the  manly  virtues.  There  is  evidence,  abundance 
of  evidence,  that  the  finest  qualities  of  manhood  are  being 
developed  about  us  everywhere  in  the  quiet  ways  of  peace, 
in  the  service  of  mankind,  not  in  the  destruction  of  it. 
The  argument  that  war  is  necessary  for  the  development 
of  the  manly  virtues,  is  absurd,  because  if  war  tends  to 

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The  Fallacies  of  War 

do  anything,  it  tends  to  select  those  who  have  the  greatest 
courage  and  skill,  and  kill  them,  leaving  the  weaker  to 
perpetuate  the  species.  At  a  matter  of  fact,  war  in  itself 
develops  many  of  the  basest  qualities  of  human  nature 
and  brings  them  to  the  front,  rather  than  the  qualities 
which  we  wish  to  perpetuate  in  men  and  women  for  the 
upbuilding  of  the  race.  The  exhibitions  of  moral  courage 
in  every-day  life  are  far  finer  and  far  more  needed  than 
the  physical  courage  which  is  comparatively  common. 

Another  of  the  fallacies  constantly  thrust  upon  us  in 
the  matter  of  war,  is  the  idea  that  wars  are  made  by  the 
pressure  of  public  events;  that  wars  are  not  made  by 
individuals  or  groups,  and  that  consequently  we,  as 
human  beings,  have  no  control  over  them ;  that  they  will 
come  in  spite  of  us.  That  is  absurd.  Wars  are  not  made 
by  the  pressure  of  public  events,  nor  by  the  pressure  of 
public  opinion,  except  in  very  rare  instances;  but  they 
are  made,  as  is  evidenced  by  the  present  war,  by  a  very 
few  individuals,  who  take  things  into  their  own  hands 
and  go  ahead  where  the  public  cannot  follow  them,  be- 
cause the  public,  at  the  time  when  war  is  declared,  is  not 
acquainted  with  the  facts. 

War,  then,  is  always  made  by  a  few  individuals,  under 
the  systems  which  have  prevailed  so  long.  The  fact  is, 
that  if  the  great  mass  of  the  men  and  women  in  Germany 
and  Russia  and  Austria  and  Japan  were  left  to  decide 
these  things,  there  would  be  no  more  war.  It  was  only 
a  little  while  ago  that  I  received  a  letter  from  a  man  in 
the  trenches  in  the  present  war,  in  which  he  described  his 
experience  and  told  about  the  good  times  that  they  had 
during  certain  intermissions,  when  the  Frenchmen  and 
Germans  and  English  would  sometimes  come  out  of  the 
trenches  and  play  football  together  and  enjoy  each  other's 
company;  and  he  spoke  of  the  horror  of  it  all,  because, 

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Addresses  World's  Social  Progress  Congress 

he  said,  not  one  of  these  individuals  wanted  to  kill  any- 
body else.  But  finally  their  commanding  officers  forbade 
them  to  have  any  more  social  intercourse,  because  this 
acquaintance  was  detrimental  to  the  pursuits  of  war.  The 
officers  realized  that  the  more  we  know  about  each  other, 
the  less  likely  we  are  to  kill  each  other. 

My  small  boy,  seven  years  old,  one  morning  at  the 
breakfast  table,  ventured  this  brilliant  remark.  He  said, 
"Father,  why  don't  those  people  get  acquainted  and  stop 
fighting?" 

When  people  get  acquainted,  they  will  stop  fighting. 
When  they  awaken  to  the  facts,  and  understand  how  they 
are  being  played  with,  how  they  are  being  killed  as  the 
sport  of  a  few  individuals,  as  we  already  understand 
about  it  in  the  United  States,  there  will  be  such  a  tre- 
mendous pressure  of  public  opinion  against  war  that  it 
will  be  impossible  for  a  few  individuals  to  take  into  their 
own  hands  the  question  of  whether  there  shall  be  war. 
You  and  I  shall  decide  whether  there  shall  be  any  warfare. 
That  will  be  a  method  of  decision  that  will  take  time,  will 
it  not?  That  is  one  of  the  virtues  of  the  method,  that  it 
will  take  time,  because  we  need  time  to  consider,  and  the 
more  time  we  take  to  consider,  the  less  likely  we  are  to 
fight.  And  when  that  good  time  comes  in  this  country, 
and  in  all  countries,  the  voice  of  all  the  women  will  be 
heard,  for  the  women,  after  all,  are  those  who  suffer  most 
severely  in  every  war. 

Another  one  of  the  fallacies  that  we  shall  point  out,  is 
the  argument  that  a  navy  is  necessary  for  the  promotion 
of  the  commercial  interests  of  any  country;  that  trade 
follows  the  flag,  and  that  we  must  have  a  big  navy  if  we 
are  to  make  money.  If  you  will  read  Doctor  Jordan's 
book,  "War  and  Waste,"  or  some  of  the  other  books  on 
this  subject,  you  will  find  a  vast  body  of  statistics,  the 

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The  Fallacies  of  War 

net  result  of  which  is,  that  those  nations  which  have  spent 
the  greatest  amount  on  war  are  the  ones  which  carry  the 
smallest  amount,  per  capita,  of  the  world's  commerce. 
When  we  had  no  navy  at  all,  twenty  years  ago,  we  car- 
ried eighty  per  cent  of  our  commerce  in  our  own  bot- 
toms, and  now  we  carry  only  eleven  or  twelve  per  cent. 

Trade  does  not  follow  the  flag  nor  the  navy ;  it  follows 
the  laws  of  trade  and  nothing  else ;  and  it  is  a  vain  expec- 
tation that  we  can  attain  material  prosperity  through 
spending  our  money  on  warships.  What  we  need  is,  not 
more  warships,  but  more  ships  of  peace  to  carry  the 
commerce  of  the  world. 

Sometime,  if  you  like,  you  may  take  pleasure  in  figur- 
ing out  about  how  much  England  pays  for  her  commerce, 
assuming  that  her  navy  is  maintained  in  the  interest  of 
her  trade.  You  will  find  that  it  is  about  fifty  per  cent  of 
all  she  gets;  that  the  entire  trade  of  her  colonies  is  not 
sufficient  to  justify  her  navy.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  strictly 
speaking  and  getting  down  to  the  very  bottom  of  the 
whole  question,  we  find  that  what  war  means,  com- 
mercially, is  no  advantage  at  all ;  the  only  thing  that  war 
can  possibly  mean  from  a  commercial  standpoint  is  that 
a  nation  goes  forth  to  destroy  its  own  markets.  That  is 
all  it  means.  England  is  at  present  destroying  her  mar- 
kets in  Germany,  and  Germany  is  destroying  her  markets 
in  England  and  France ;  Russia  is  destroying  her  markets 
in  Turkey.  So  far  as  it  can  possibly  do  it,  by  every  ex- 
penditure of  energy  and  sacrifice,  each  nation  is  making  it 
almost  impossible  for  the  other  nations  to  trade  with  it 
for  many  years  to  come.  War  is  the  destruction  of  our 
own  markets,  and  of  our  system  of  credit  upon  which 
the  trade  of  the  world  depends. 

I  cannot  dwell  on  that  any  longer,  but  will  pass  quickly 
to  another  of  the  fallacies  of  war,  and  one  about  which 

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Addresses  World's  Social  Progress  Congress 

we  must  educate  the  next  generation,  and  that  is,  that  war 
is  ever  necessary  to  settle  controversies.  It  gives  rise  to 
new  controversies;  but  so  far  as  concerns  the  contro- 
versies which  are  supposed  to  cause  any  particular  war 
are  concerned,  they  must  be  settled  by  arbitration  after 
the  war  is  over ;  so  that  the  only  question  is  whether  you 
shall  arbitrate  your  differences  before  or  after  you  fight. 
You  are  going  to  arbitrate  them  anyway. 

That  is  the  situation  in  Europe  to-day.  As  a  matter 
of  fact,  war  cannot  settle  differences;  it  never  in  itself 
achieves  any  permanent  settlement.  Many  people  believe 
that  we  should  not  rush  into  Mexico  with  our  army  in 
order  to  settle  international  problems  in  that  country,  and 
in  fact  it  would  have  been  ridiculous;  we  could  never 
have  settled  them  in  that  way.  Only  last  summer  the 
nations  of  Europe  were  laughing  at  our  policy  of  "watch- 
ful waiting."  Is  Europe  laughing  now?  If  the  nations 
of  Europe  last  summer  had  pursued  the  "watchful  wait- 
ing" policy,  there  would  be  no  war  in  Europe  now.  (Ap- 
plause.) 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  we  could  have  done  nothing  but 
stir  up  further  strife  in  Mexico,  and  continued  warfare. 
As  some  German  general  has  said,  you  can  do  a  great 
many  things  with  bayonets,  but  you  cannot  sit  on  them. 

The  last  of  the  fallacies  that  I  shall  speak  of  to  you,  is 
the  idea  that  we  can  safeguard  peace  by  preparing  for 
war ;  and  that,  mind  you,  is  one  of  the  strongest  and  most 
pernicious  arguments  used  by  those  who  are  in  favor  of 
larger  armies  and  navies,  because  it  gets  hold  of  the  very 
people  who  are  sincerely  desirous  of  perpetuating  peace 
among  men.  The  idea  that  you  are  somehow  going  to 
get  peace  by  preparations  for  war,  is  absurd  on  the  face 
of  it.  The  way  to  get  anything  is,  not  to  prepare  for 
exactly  the  opposite,  for,  in  the  long  run,  we  get  about 

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The  Fallacies  of  War 

what  we  prepare  for;  and  so  preparation  for  war  is  the 
surest  means  of  getting  war.  Where  there  are  no  forts 
and  battleships,  no  guns  and  no  soldiers,  there  is  no  war. 
No  king  or  emperor  or  president  or  congress  can  possibly 
bring  a  sudden  war  upon  the  people  unless  the  ammuni- 
tion is  all  piled  up  ready  for  war.  We  get  what  we  are 
prepared  for. 

I  had  a  letter  recently  from  the  Navy  League  of  Amer- 
ica asking  me  to  aid  them  in  their  campaign  for  a  larger 
navy,  and  among  the  thirty-five  or  forty  fallacious  argu- 
ments they  presented  was  one  saying  that  the  reason  why 
the  Spanish  war  was  so  successful  was  because  we  were 
prepared  for  it.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  reason  why  we 
had  the  Spanish  war  was  because  we  were  prepared  for 
war  and  Spain  was  not.  The  reason  that  the  jingo  mem- 
bers of  Congress  were  able  to  stir  up  sufficient  trouble  to 
drag  us  into  war,  was  because  they  knew  the  navy  was 
ready;  and  yet,  at  that  very  time,  Spain,  through  our 
own  minister,  had  agreed  to  ^arbitrate  all  the  differences 
between  us,  including  the  sinking  of  the  Maine.  But  we 
were  prepared  for  that  war,  and  so  we  got  it.  The 
smaller  our  navy,  the  smaller  our  likelihood  of  being 
drawn  into  war. 

Mr.  Roosevelt  says  that  a  proper  armament  is  the 
surest  guarantee  of  peace.  The  first  question  is.  What 
is  a  "proper  armament"?  It  is  only  fifteen  or  twenty 
years  ago  that  a  proper  armament,  so  far  as  the  navy  is 
concerned,  cost  the  United  States  Government  from  ten 
to  twenty  million  dollars  a  year.  A  year  or  two  ago  it 
had  risen  to  a  hundred  and  twenty  million,  and  now  it  is 
a  hundred  and  forty- four  million;  and  yet  the  Navy 
League  is  demanding  that  we  spend  next  year  a  hundred 
and  sixty  million  for  a  "proper  armament"  to  safeguard 

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Addresses  World's  Social  Progress  Congress 

peace.  There  is  no  end  to  their  demands  for  a  "proper 
armament." 

That  whole  argument  is  fallacious  on  the  face  of  it, 
because  there  is  only  one  way  in  which  any  nation  can 
guarantee  peace  through  armament,  and  that  is  by  getting 
an  armament  so  much  larger  than  any  possible  combina- 
tion that  it  cannot  be  attacked.  But  how  can  more  than 
one  nation  on  the  face  of  the  globe  have  that  kind  of  a 
guarantee  ?  Consequently  there  is  a  mad  rush,  in  which 
the  devastating  expenditures  of  one  nation  are  merely  an 
incentive  for  every  other  nation  to  do  the  same.  And  so  it 
goes  around  the  world,  and  there  can  be  no  end  until  we 
insist  upon  the  fallacy  of  the  assumption  that  any  army 
is  a  guarantee  of  peace. 

We  have  spoken  of  the  long  line  between  Canada  and 
America.  That  boundary  line  is  a  treme'ndous  argument. 
The  most  heavily  fortified  line  you  can  find  anywhere  is 
that  between  France  and  Germany,  or  Germany  and 
Russia,  and  right  there,  where  you  have  the  most  tre- 
mendous armaments,  is  right  where  you  have  the  greatest 
war,  while  for  a  hundred  years  the  four  thousand  miles 
of  boundary  between  Canada  and  the  United  States  has 
been,  by  agreement,  without  a  soldier,  without  a  gun,  and 
without  a  war.  That  boundary  line  is  four  thousand 
miles  of  argument  against  armaments. 

In  closing,  I  want  to  say  that  it  seems  to  me  that  the 
United  States  has  now  a  supremely  important  and  stra- 
tegic position  in  regard  to  the  welfare  of  the  world.  And 
the  United  States  may,  through  all  of  its  people,  so  act 
and  continue  to  act  in  the  present  crisis,  that  the  time  will 
come  when  the  great  peace  prize  which  hitherto  has  been 
given  only  to  individuals  or  societies,  might  properly  be 
given  to  the  United  States  of  America  ;  because  the  United 
States  can  act  throughout  this  controversy  in  such  a  way 

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The  Fallacies  of  War 

as  to  make  known  in  strong  and  far-reaching  language 
that  all  may  understand,  that  the  people  of  this  country 
stand  for  the  beating  of  swords  into  ploughshares  to  the 
end  that  mankind  shall  no  longer  be  crucified  upon  the 
cross  of  war,  and  that  the  time  has  come  when  we  shall 
abandon  the  fallacious  idea  that  in  time  of  peace  we 
should  prepare  for  war,  and  in  its  place — ^mark  you  this — 
in  its  place  let  us  insist,  individually  and  in  our  every-day 
capacity,  whether  in  groups  like  this,  or  as  individuals, 
that  the  time  has  come  for  this  nation  to  declare,  as  a 
nation,  through  all  its  people,  with  determination  and 
fortitude  and  sacrifice,  and  a  dauntless  energy  equal  to 
that  which  men  have  put  forth  in  warfare,  and  in  the 
same  spirit  of  sacrifice  and  determination,  that  now,  at 
last,  the  time  has  come  when  we,  as  a  nation,  shall  stand 
for  the  doctrine  that,  in  time  of  war  we  must  prepare 
for  peace. 


\61 


Chapter  XIII. 
MORE  WAR  FALLACIES 

BY  DAVID  STARR  JORDAN. 

Doctor  Foster  has  crowded  much  truth  and  good  sense 
into  his  address,  and  in  the  time  that  I  have  to  speak 
I  want  to  touch  again  on  some  of  the  points  of  which  he 
has  spoken. 

The  maxim  that  in  time  of  peace  we  should  prepare 
for  war,  does  not  go  back  to  Washington.  Washington 
quoted  that  saying;  but  he  also  said  that  an  overgrown 
army  is  one  of  the  greatest  dangers  to  liberty,  and  espe- 
cially republican  liberty.  What  he  would  have  called  an 
overgrown  army  was  one  costing  a  hundred  thousand 
dollars  a  year,  not  two  hundred  and  ninety  million  as  at 
present.  The  maxim,  "In  time  of  peace  prepare  for  war," 
goes  back  to  Machiavelli,  and  he  was  the  apostle  of  a 
mean  opportunism;  that  is,  he  believed  in  taking  advan- 
tage of  other  nations  when  you  had  a  chance. 

But  it  didn't  start  with  him.  ^sop  tells  a  story  that 
some  one  saw  a  wild  boar  sharpening  his  tusks,  and  when 
asked  why,  he  replied,  "In  time  of  peace  I  prepare  for 
war";  and  so  Edward  Everett  Hale  declares  that  this 
maxim  goes  back  to  an  old  hog. 

The  question  of  what  is  a  proper  navy  and  army  is 
one  that  keeps  coming  up  and  is  never  answered.  It  is 
always  ten  per  cent  greater  than  last  year.  Some  years 
ago  our  navy  sailed  around  the  world  to  make  an  im- 
pression. The  impression  wasn't  altogether  a  good  one, 
although  the  officers  and  men  were  on  their  good  behavior. 
But  that  was  a  small  navy  compared  with  what  we  have 

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More  War  Fallacies 

now,  or  compared  with  what  the  other  nations  had.  The 
others  are  all  going  to  ruin  now ;  so  ours  is,  or  soon  will 
be,  stronger  than  any  other.  At  any  rate,  no  one  can 
show  that  any  .other  is  stronger,  because  if  any  of  them 
ventured  out  they  would  be  destroyed. 

We  like  to  have  a  good-sized  navy  because  it  is  good 
for  display  and  it  gives  us  a  comfortable  feeling  of  being 
well  dressed  as  a  nation,  and  a  young  nation  likes  that 
sort  of  thing.  William  Penn,  when  he  was  young,  wore 
a  sword,  and  somebody  remonstrated  with  Fox;  but  he 
said,  "Let  him  wear  it  as  long  as  he  enjoys  it;  he  will 
outgrow  it  by  and  by."  So  the  nation  will  outgrow  its 
navy  after  a  while.  Some  of  the  most  sincere  men  in 
the  country  are  among  the  naval  officers,  but  they  are 
not  the  ones  that  talk.  What  we  don't  want  is  to  be  ad- 
vised by  retired  officers  who  have  nothing  to  think  of  but 
how  to  get  a  bigger  navy;  and  we  don't  want  to  be  ad- 
vised by  the  Navy  League,  when  the  president  of  that 
league  is  the  president  of  the  nickel  trust  and  a  son-in-law 
of  Mr.  Morgan,  is  one  of  the  officers,  because  all  these 
big  manufacturing  interests  belong  to  the  New  York 
system.  We  don't  know  just  how  far  this  is  true,  but 
we  don't  like  to  be  advised  by  these  agencies,  nor  by  any 
other  men  connected  with  that  system.  At  least  two  of 
them  have  been  secretaries  of  the  navy  in  times  past,  and 
they  were  supposed  to  know  how  much  they  ought  to  buy 
because  they  were  agents  and  buying  for  themselves. 

We  are  not  sure  of  any  of  these  propositions  except  as 
we  see  the  names  on  the  letter  heading  of  the  Navy 
League ;  but  we  know  that  Krupp,  in  Germany,  has  backed 
many  German  navy  leagues,  and  it  may  be  that  they  were 
partly  responsible  for  the  war.  That  is  their  business. 
They  were  making  a  profit  during  times  of  peace,  and 
those  profits  have  now  risen  to  ten  or  fifteen  million  dol- 

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Addresses  World's  Social  Progress  Congress 

lars  a  day,  and  you  can  send  out  with  that  amount  a 
great  many  agents  to  form  leagues ;  you  can  hire  many 
admirals  and  generals  in  your  service.  In  England  the 
late  Secretary  of  the  Navy  did  quit  the  service  of  the 
Government  and  go  into  the  service  of  the  armament 
companies  themselves.  It  is  a  delicate  question  when  the 
men  who  were  previously  buying  from  these  establish- 
ments become  their  agents. 

So  there  are  some  we  don't  want  advice  from ;  and,  for 
one,  I  don't  want  to  take  advice  from  any  navy  league 
whatever  until  I  know  that  it  represents,  as  the  Navy 
League  does  not,  the  opinion  of  the  best  men  in  the  navy. 

I  went  over  to  Germany  thirty-four  years  ago  on  a 
North-German  Lloyd  steamer.  The  company  was  young 
then,  and  the  officers  on  that  steamer  treated  the  pas- 
sengers as  though  they  were  Alsatian  peasants  or  recruits, 
and  I  resolved  that  I  would  never  go  on  the  North-Ger- 
man Lloyd  again.  I  have  occasion  to  change  my  mind 
since  and  have  traveled  something  like  thirty  thousand 
miles  on  these  steamers;  but  now  they  have  learned  that 
it  pays  to  give  attention  to  every  little  matter.  They  do 
not  drop  the  passengers'  baggage  into  the  Bay  of  Naples 
any  more  and  refuse  to  pick  it  up.  They  don't  order  the 
passengers  around  as  though  they  were  recruits,  but  make 
them  feel  as  though  they  were  guests  of  the  company. 
They  treat  the  passengers  and  shippers  with  courtesy,  and 
the  North-German  Lloyd  has  risen  to  be  the  second  larg- 
est shipping  company  in  the  world;  the  largest  is  the 
Hamburg- American.  That  does  not  count  combines  such 
as  Morgans. 

I  inquired  what  profits  the  North-German  Lloyd  was 
making.  It  has  extended  its  trade  to  the  United  States, 
and  the  rest  was  mainly  with  Great  Britain  and  the 
British   possessions.      Some   people  have   said   that   the 

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More  War  Fallacies 

British  have  brought  the  war  on  because  they  were 
jealous  of  this  company;  but  that  isn't  true,  because 
nobody  ever  heard  of  an  EngHshman  that  envied  anybody 
or  anything  whatever,  and  another  reason  is  that  England 
never  put  a  single  protective  tariff  or  tax  against  the 
German  steamers.  If  they  had  been  jealous  they  would 
have  done  that. 

Now  the  North-German  Lloyd  was  making  a  certain 
amount  of  clear  profit,  and  the  Hamburg-American  also, 
as  well  as  the  smaller  German  companies;  and  adding 
these  all  together,  I  found  that  the  profit  from  the  whole 
German  commerce  overseas  amounted  to  $45,000,000 
clear  profit  per  year;  and  the  navy  that  was  intended  to 
protect  this  commerce  was  costing  Germany  $139,000,000 
a  year.  That  was  what  it  cost  to  protect  this  $45,000,000. 
In  other  words,  the  rate  of  insurance  was  three  hundred 
per  cent;  and  it  didn't  insure.  When  those  men  that 
formed  the  little  military  clique  around  Berlin  brought 
on  the  war,  this  insurance  was  gone.  The  North-German 
Lloyd  and  the  others  thought  they  could  prevent  war,  but 
the  ultimatum  was  issued,  and  they  couldn't  meet  the 
problem  face  to  face.  You  know  what  an  ultimatum  is. 
It  is  a  request  to  (Jecide  over  night  whether  you  will  be 
swallowed  whole  at  once  or  masticated  the  next  day. 
The  small  nation  gets  gobbled,  in  either  case,  as  Servia 
and  Belgium  have  found  out. 

But  we  are  not  to  be  anti-German,  because  this  spirit 
does  not  really  represent  the  Germans. 

We  have  been  told  that  our  navy  is  charged  with  the 
duty  of  protecting  our  coasts ;  but  no  nation  could  attack 
us  without  going  to  New  York  to  borrow  the  money,  and 
they  couldn't  get  it.  When  New  York  stopped  lending 
money  to  the  Japanese,  the  Japanese  war  stopped.  Banker 
Schiff  wouldn't  lend  any  more  money,  and  they  couldn't 

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Addresses  World's  Social  Progress  Congress 

get  any  in  Europe.  Their  principal  general  said  he  could 
hold  his  army  together  for  about  four  weeks,  and  after 
that  they  would  have  to  disband  right  there  in  Manchuria. 
So  that  is  why  there  was  peace.  Russia  could  have  beaten 
Japan  by  simply  keeping  out  of  reach  until  the  Japanese 
were  worn  out.  When  the  war  was  over,  Japan's  debt 
was  so  heavy  that  she  has  not  been  able  to  borrow  a 
dollar  since. 

Russia  owed  seven  thousand  million ;  how  much  Russia 
owes  France  on  account  of  this  present  war,  we  cannot 
tell  until  this  war  is  over. 

President  Foster  has  said  some  things  so  important 
that  I  want  to  make  you  think  of  them  a  second  time. 
I  don't  believe  that  the  settlement  of  this  war  is  going 
to  be  instantaneous."  We  may  see  it  stopped,  but  war 
settles  nothing;  it  is  what  is  done  afterward  that  deter- 
mines what  comes  of  the  war.  Now,  we  are  a  sort  of 
overflow  meeting  of  Europe,  but  we  have  a  better  hall, 
and  our  fathers  and  mothers  had  some  ideas  that  were 
in  advance  of  most  of  those  in  Europe  at  that  time.  One 
of  the  best  is  the  idea  of  equality  before  the  law.  An- 
other is  the  idea  of  holding  of  a  human  body  as  sacred ; 
that  only  in  the  direst  extremity  can  a  nation  take  a  hu- 
man being  and  make  a  rampart  of  him.  In  many  of  the 
battles  of  Europe,  the  dead  bodies  have  actually  been  piled 
up  to  form  ramparts,  but  you  can't  do  that  here. 

It  is  all  a  matter  of  education,  and  even  in  this  country 
we  haven't  enough.  Some  time  ago,  I  was  talking  to  a 
German  audience  in  what  I  regarded  as  the  German  lan- 
guage, and  the  Germans  seemed  to  understand.  I  told 
them  that  their  war  system  had  poisoned  all  their  teaching 
of  history  and  morals  and  religion  and  patriotism;  and 
they  stood  for  that ;  but  the  next  week  their  Navy  League 
came  with  moving  pictures  of  the  German  ships;  that 

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More  War  Fallacies 

was  their  antidote  to  my  remarks.  But  I  had  a  greater 
attendance  than  I  have  here.  There  is  a  fine  body  of 
people  in  Germany,  who  beheve  as  we  do  in  education, 
and  who  reaHze  that  the  people  of  other  nations  are 
human  like  ourselves ;  and  the  time  must  come  when  the 
body  of  a  man  or  woman  or  baby  shall  be  as  sacred  as 
any  flag.  There  are  people  in  Germany  who  believe  that. 
I  had  a  paper  from  Germany  the  other  day,  marked 
"Cordially,"  and  a  postcard,  on  which  was  written, 
"Spring  is  coming."  Sometime  we  shall  hear  again  from 
all  these  people.  They  can't  write  much  now,  for  the 
censor  is  very  rigid;  he  is  suspicious  of  everything  that 
is  written  that  says  anything.  But  there  is  a  body  of 
people  in  Germany  who  would  like  to  have  this  thing 
brought  to  an  end.  And  then  the  letters  that  come,  edged 
with  black!  One  of  my  friends  sent  me,  the  other  day, 
a  letter  that  his  son  had  written  from  Poland,  just  before 
he  died  for  his  country,  and  that  letter  was  touching  in 
the  extreme;  and  when  we  criticize  and  disapprove  of 
the  attack  of  Servia  or  Belgium,  we  must  remember  that 
the  people  over  there  are  just  as  helpless  in  this  matter 
as  we  are.  Our  place  is  to  bind  up  the  wounds  and  make 
friends,  as  we  have  done  in  Belgium. 

One  of  the  men  that  we  can  be  proudest  of,  that  has 
helped  to  save  five  million  Belgians,  is  a  California  man 
and  a  graduate  of  Stanford  and  the  first  man  to  enter  our 
halls,  Herbert  Clark  Hoover. 

I  once  heard  the  president  of  one  of  our  Eastern  uni- 
versities, addressing  a  body  of  teachers,  tell  them  what  to 
be  proud  of,  and  there  is  nothing  for  us  to  be  prouder 
of  than  our  Canadian  border.  But  this  professor  said 
that  we  should  be  proud  of  our  four  foreign  wars  be- 
cause we  were  victorious  in  every  one.  That  was  rather 
parallyzing.    The  war  with  England  wasn't  a  foreign  war, 

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Addresses  World's  Social  Progress  Congress 

although  the  next  one  was.  If  we  were  victorious,  that 
fact  has  escaped  all  the  histories.  I  supposed  that  the 
war  with  Mexico  had  long  been  a  source  of  shame,  and 
in  the  war  with  Spain  I  thought  that  Cervera  got  most 
of  the  laurels.  We  could  have  had  anything  from  Spain 
that  we  were  entitled  to,  without  shedding  a  drop  of 
American  blood;  so  we  lost  that  war.  University  presi- 
dents like  Mr.  Foster  and  myself  and  this  man  from  the 
East,  ought  to  know  about  these  things  and  teach  wliat 
is  true.  The  Civil  War  was  unavoidable  on  account  of 
the  temper  of  the  times ;  but  if  we  had  paid  ten  thousand 
dollars  apiece  for  every  slave  and  given  each  one  a  farm, 
it  would  have  been  cheaper  than  killing  the  people  of  the 
South.  But  there  were  no  railroads  in  those  days,  no 
connection  between  North  and  South  and  there  is  now. 
The  important  thing  is  to  get  acquainted.  Charles  Lamb 
once  said,  of  a  certain  man,  "I  hate  that  fellow."  He 
was  asked,  "Do  you  know  him?"  And  he  answered, 
"Oh,  no,  I  don't  know  him;  I  never  could  hate  anybody 
that  I  knew."  There  is  nothing  so  costly  as  hate ;  hating 
people  that  you  don't  know  by  sight. 

I  was  once  talking  with  a  German  who  had  been  a 
conscript,  and  he  told  me  that  he  once  went  into  France 
and  saw  some  French  conscripts  going  to  maneuvers,  and 
when  the  car  stopped,  one  of  the  young  men  reached  out 
and  kissed  his  mother.  That  surprised  the  German  be- 
cause he  had  been  told  that  every  Frenchman  was  a  fiend 
who  was  trying  to  destroy  German  homes  and  who  hated 
everything  that  makes  family  life  beautiful;  and  he 
found  that  this  French  boy  was  just  like  any  other  boy. 

In  Nuremburg,  we  had  a  hall  four  times  as  big  as  this, 
filled  with  people.  Constant,  who  is  the  most  eloquent 
man  in  France,  now  that  Jaures  is  dead,  made  a  magnifi- 
cent appeal  to  clasp  hands  across  the  Vosges ;  and  one  of 

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More  War  Fallacies 

the  fine  young  men  of  Germany  spoke  in  the  same  vein, 
and  we  all  applauded.  But  it  has  been  said  that  the 
Bavarians  have  no  influence  in  Berlin.  I  remember  that 
Prince  Collier  said  that  if  the  Kaiser  wanted  war,  he  had 
only  to  press  the  button,  and  the  people  of  Germany 
would  have  nothing  to  do  with  it.  I  don't  believe  that  the 
Kaiser  wanted  war;  he  thought  that  Russia  wouldn't 
fight,  and  that  he  could  press  the  button  and  get  Russia 
out  of  the  Balkans  without  fighting. 

Germany  has  had  a  practical  monopoly  of  the  making 
of  dyes.  There  every  man  is  a  cog  in  the  industrial  ma- 
chine, and  while  he  is  practically  guaranteed  a  place,  he 
is  also  paid  very  small  wages  and  prevented  from  rising 
very  much ;  for  it  is  one  of  the  laws  of  social  science  that 
if  you  hold  people  up  so  they  won't  fall,  you  also  prevent 
them  from  rising.  So  over  there  they  can  afford  to  work 
for  less  than  anywhere  else,  and  the  whole  dye  business 
was  transferred  to  Germany ;  so  we  must  start  this  busi- 
ness up  for  ourselves  until  after  the  war,  when  it  will 
probably  go  back,  because  trade  always  flows  in  the  lines 
of  least  resistance. 

War  is  like  a  great  lava  stream.  It  destroys  every- 
thing that  it  touches,  spreading  out  into  small  streams 
running  everywhere.  In  Europe  there  was  built  up,  on 
about  nine  thousand  million  dollars  worth  of  gold  and 
silver,  a  great  credit,  and  there  were  about  two  hundred 
thousand  million  dollars  of  engraved  bonds  and  stocks 
for  sale  in  Europe,  beside  twenty-seven  thousand  millions 
of  national  debt.  There  were  city  bonds,  and  corpora- 
tion bonds,  and  bonds  of  all  kinds,  held  by  all  kinds  of 
people.  There  are  thousands  of  people  living  on  the 
interest  of  that  money.  Now,  while  the  war  is  on,  there 
is  a  kind  of  exaltation ;  they  don't  count  the  cost  and  they 
don't  know  where  they  are.     There  are  millions  of  men 

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Addresses  World* s  Social  Progress  Congress 

that  ought  to  be  at  work,  and  all  that  work  is  stopped. 
By  and  by,  these  men  will  come  back  to  find  that  there 
are  no  jobs.  There  has  already  been  spent  in  this  war 
more  than  the  entire  value  of  all  the  property  in  the  em- 
pire of  Russia.  Who  is  going  to  pay  for  all  this  ?  Industry 
pays  for  it.  Now  there  is  no  capital  to  borrow  or  loan, 
and  nobody  dares  to  go  into  any  new  business.  There  are 
four  great  establishments  in  this  country  that  have  abso- 
lutely refused  to  touch  any  of  this  trade  in  armaments. 
One  is  the  Dayton  Cash  Register  Company,  and  there  are 
three  others,  and  they  have  all  refused  because  it  is 
wrong.  We  can't  prevent  these  sales  now ;  the  time  to  do 
that  is  when  the  war  is  over,  and  it  is  going  to  be  very 
hard  to  prohibit  these  private  sales  then.  The  Emperor 
of  Germany  has  twelve  million  dollars  worth  of  stock 
invested  in  the  Krupp  works,  and  the  kings  and  the 
aristocracy  all  have  stock  in  the  great  corporations.  Even 
here  it  hasn't  always  been  certain  whether  the  govern- 
ment or  the  system  was  the  stronger. 

It  has  been  said  that  there  are  three  kinds  of  poor  men 
in  the  world:  the  Lord's  poor,  the  devil's  poor,  and 
paupers.  The  Lord's  poor  are  those  who  are  in  trouble, 
like  the  Belgians.  We  are  helping  take  care  of  them,  and 
selling  meal  tickets  for  them,  some  of  them  a  hundred 
meals  for  a  dollar,  and  some  expensive  meals  at  six  cents 
apiece. 

The  women  of  the  world  are  rising  to  the  conception 
that  every  war  is  against  them.  They  gain  nothing,  and 
they  suffer ;  the  number  who  die  at  home  is  about  sixteen 
times  as  great  as  the  number  who  die  in  times  of  peace. 
There  is  typhoid  and  dysentery  in  Servia  and  dysentery 
in  Poland.  This  war  is  the  most  infernal  thing  we  know 
in  history ;  it  is  scourging  the  whole  world. 


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Chapter  XIV. 
PEACE  AND  SOCIAL  PROGRESS 

MRS.  MAY  WRIGHT  SEWALL 

Mr.  President,  Ladies,  and  Gentlemen :  I  must  correct 
one  statement  made  by  the  presiding  officer,  lest  you  give 
to  me  an  affection  that,  on  a  perfectly  honest  presentation 
of  my  claims,  you  might  withhold.  I  am  only  temporarily 
of  this  city;  Indianapolis  is  home.  While  I  like  to  have 
other  people  hurrah  for  Hoosierdom,  I  like  to  hurrah  for 
California.  It  is  better  to  hurrah  for  one  another  than 
for  ourselves. 

I  have  been  much  interested  in  the  opening  remarks 
of  our  president,  and  find  myself  perfectly  sympathetic 
with  the  ideas  not  only  directly  expressed,  but  implied ; 
for  I  infer  from  what  he  has  said,  that  Bishop  Bell  still 
has  faith  in  the  two  or  three  that  are  gathered  together 
under  the  banner  of  any  progressive  hope.  Now,  that  is 
the  banner  under  which  we  are  assembled,  and  one  that 
has  long  been  flaunting  to  the  breezes  of  the  world. 

Again,  in  the  announcement  of  plans,  there  is  just  one 
sentence  to  which  I  wish  to  object,  in  order  to  give  my 
full  sympathy  to  the  plans.  It  seemed  as  if  they  were 
being  particularly  made  for  people  this  side  of  the  Rocky 
Mountains.  Now,  there  is  just  one  thing  in  this  world 
that  I  want  to  crush.  I  do  not  wish  to  crush  any  people, 
because  I  wish  to  incorporate  within  myself  the  spirit  of 
every  nation  in  the  world;  but  I  would  like  to  crush  the 
Rocky  Mountains  as  a  boundary  between  sections  of  our 
common  country.  I  do  not  wish  to  crush  that  mighty 
range  itself,  for  I  enjoy  its  beauty  too  well  as  I  travel 

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Addresses  World's  Social  Progress  Congress 

back  and  forth ;  I  do  not  wish  to  crush  any  of  its  capacity 
for  giving  health  and  weaUh  and  high  aspiration  to  the 
artist  and  poet ;  I  only  wish  to  crush  what  their  presence 
represented  during  a  time  when  the  science  and  the  skill 
of  man  had  not  conquered  the  problems  of  transportation 
and  the  luxuries  of  travel  that  we  now  enjoy.  There  was 
a  period  when  that  physical  feature  was,  to  a  certain 
extent,  a  cause  for  there  having  been  a  spiritual  barrier. 
That  excuse  no  longer  remains.  Therefore,  I  am  eager 
always  to  have  everything  that  is  fine  and  splendid  on 
this  side  of  the  Rocky  Mountains,  scale  the  peaks  obliv- 
ious of  their  existence;  and  everything  that  is  good  on  the 
other  side  of  the  Rocky  Mountains,  scale  the  peaks  com- 
ing westward,  also  ignoring  their  existence. 

"Social  Progress  and  War"  is  my  subject.  It  could  be 
summed  up  in  a  sentence,  but  I  am  not  the  kind  of 
speaker  who  proposes  to  relieve  you  in  that  way.  I  might 
say  that  the  one  thing  that  destroys  always,  in  propor- 
tion as  it  itself  exists,  the  one  thing  that  destroys  social 
progress,  is  war ;  and  yet,  as  there  is  another  view  to  take 
of  that,  which  I  will  touch  upon  later,  I  do  not  wish  to. 
commence  with  a  sentence  that  will  sum  up  all  that  I  can 
say.  I  will  say  that,  during  all  of  my  mature  life,  I  have 
acknowledged  the  preparation  for  it  which  I  received 
under  the  influence  of  those  wonderful  people  whom  we 
now  speak  of  as  Garrisonian  Abolitionists.  With  them, 
social  progress  began  among  the  American  people.  It 
didn't  have  its  first  roots  there.  Nothing,  of  course,  so 
young  as  that  would  be  sufficiently  well  rooted  to  earn 
veneration.  For  those  initiative  efforts  were  derived 
from  efforts  of  a  similar  character  across  the  sea,  and 
from  the  great  principles  which  first  inspired  the  settle- 
ment of  our  colonies.  But  there  was,  as  you  all  know, 
at  that  period,  a  tremendous  awakening  in  regard  to 

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Peace  and  Social  Progress 

freedom,  and  expansion  of  the  idea  of  what  American 
freedom  should  be  and  the  message  that  it  should  carry 
to  the  world,  and  of  the  dimensions  of  the  world  to  which 
that  message  should  be  carried. 

Then,  all  these  movements  that  we  now  see  growing 
into  some  kind  of  maturity,  were  beginning  in  various 
lines  of  what  we  call  social  progress,  manifesting  them- 
selves in  these  organizations,  local  at  first,  and  then 
growing  into  those  wider  and  more  inclusive  organiza- 
tions which  ignore  boundaries,  just  as  I  want  the  Rocky 
Mountains  ignored.  This  movement  first  manifested  it- 
self, so  far  as  women  were  concerned,  in  a  group  move- 
ment for  woman's  political  liberty,  the  tocsin  for  which 
had  been  rung  before  I  was  in  my  cradle,  and  which  made 
a  new  world  for  me  to  be  cradled  in  and  grow  up  in. 
Then  there  were  these  other  movements,  ignoring  political 
boundaries  that  had  divided  men  quite  as  much  as  reli- 
gious boundaries  had  divided  women,  and  bring  together 
the  unlike  as  well  as  the  like. 

Now,  from  my  point  of  view,  social  progress  has  been 
accelerated  almost  in  direct  proportion  to  the  application 
of  the  principle  of  co-operation  to  people  who  are  unlike 
each  other.  So  long  as  people  co-operate  with  one  an- 
other only  to  the  degree  that  they  share  opinions,  only  to 
the  degree  that  they  belong  to  the  same  religious  persua- 
sion or  the  same  sectarian  group,  or  belong  to  the  same 
social  caste,  having  the  same  bank  accounts  and  following 
about  the  same  fashions,  and  have  enjoyed  relatively  the 
same  privileges  and  suffered  from  the  same  limitations: 
while  co-operation  was  included  within  such  lines,  social 
progress  was  impossible,  for  that  depends  upon  leaping 
over  the  lines  always. 

We  must  first  realize  what  had  been  accomplished  be- 
fore this  tremendous  tragedy   from  which  we  are  all 

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Addresses  World's  Social  Progress  Congress 

suffering  to  the  degree  that  we  enter  into  the  world's  life, 
to  that  degree  we  consciously  suffer  every  day.  If  there 
is  any  one  here  who  is  not  suffering  from  this  war,  I  want 
him  or  her  to  know  that  it  is  because  a  certain  portion 
of  his  mental  or  spiritual  faculty  is  paralyzed,  and  he 
hasn't  been  awakened  to  his  relationship  to  the  peoples 
involved  in  the  war. 

Our  social  progress,  even  within  the  definition  that  I 
have  indicated,  that  it  should  mean  the  co-operation  of  the 
unlike,  began  only  very  recently,  and  I  shall  be  modest 
enough,  gentlemen,  not  to  undertake  to  measure  your 
progress.  I  shall  leave  that  for  men  to  state ;  you  might 
think  that  I  understated  it,  and  I  certainly  do  not  wish 
to  wrong  my  brothers.  But  I  am  ready  to  state,  in 
regard  to  the  social  progress  that  has  been  conceived, 
manifested,  and  officered  by  women,  and,  so  far  as  that 
is  concerned,  international  co-operation  among  women, 
except  for  the  few  illuminated  souls  who,  in  the  early 
years  of  the  nineteenth  century,  contemplated  it,  there 
was  no  international  co-operation  among  women  prior  to 
the  year  1887.  In  that  year  there  began  preparations  for 
a  festival  in  our  country  to  celebrate  what  had  already 
been  accomplished  in  the  direction  of  social  progress,  as 
social  progress  had  up  to  that  time  been  conceived  by 
women.  Looking  about  over  the  world,  we  found 
that  the  same  avenues  for  expressing  the  desire  for  the 
advancement  of  social  progress  had  been  opened  in  seven 
other  countries  beside  the  United  States,  but  only  in  seven 
others.  Now,  none  of  us  had  thought  very  much  about 
international  co-operation.  We  had,  naturally  enough, 
been  occupied  with  thinking  about  national  co-operation 
in  our  big  country.  National  co-operation  is  a  very  sig- 
nificant phrase,  and  it  means  the  co-operation  of  people 
separated  in  national  origins  as  much  as  the  population 

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Peace  and  Social  Progress 

of  European  countries,  the  co-operation  of  people  whose 
homes  are  as  distant  from  one  another  as  those  of  the 
large  majority  of  European  nations;  so  it  was  such  a 
big  thing  that  it  is  no  wonder  that  our  imagination  had 
not  set  for  its  task  international  co-operation. 

But  when  it  was  discovered  that  there  were  feeble 
efforts  to  bring  the  unlike  together  in  our  country,  and 
that  these  feeble  efforts  were  met  every  time  by  preju- 
dices arising  from  the  only  root  for  prejudice  which  I 
know,  ignorance  of  one  another,  and  that  social  progress 
was  impeded  by  this,  then  there  were  some  people  who 
saw  that  the  progress  of  the  world  depends  upon  know- 
ing the  person  unlike  myself.  Therefore,  this  enterprise 
of  getting  acquainted  with  people  unlike  yourself,  and 
almost  compelling  people  who  were  unlike  one  another  to 
come  so  nearly  together  that  they  were  forced  to  revise 
their  opinions  of  one  another,  so  far  as  their  opinions 
were  caused  by  prejudice  based  on  ignorance — for  igno- 
rance is  a  very  sandy  foundation.  All  it  needs  is  a  tiny 
trembling  of  investigation,  a  tiny  trembling  that  can  be 
applied  by  knowledge,  and  that  foundation  crumbles. 

I  wish  I  could  trace  for  you  the  experience  the  women 
had  in  trying  to  bridge  chasms  between  nation  and  na- 
tion, and  between  race  and  race,  to  co-operate  with  people 
of  different  nations  and  races;  but  the  story,  measured 
by  the  time,  is  much  too  long,  or  as  measured  by  struggle 
and  achievement,  to  tell  you  this  morning.  I  can  only  say 
that,  beginning  with  a  hope  and  desire  for  international 
co-operation,  and  with  a  desire  also  on  the  part  of  many 
fine  women  in  whom  the  wish  had  not  blossomed  into  a 
hope,  there  was  then  only  our  own  country  which  had 
a  group  of  women  who  believed  that  it  could  be  done. 
We  believed  that  it  would  be  possible  for  American 
women  and   English  women  at  least  to  forget  all  the 

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Addresses  World's  Social  Progress  Congress 

false  ideas  about  one  another  that  had  been  inculcated 
in  the  school  histories  that  they  had  studied  as  children, 
and  all  the  prejudices  of  the  period  of  time  stretching 
from  the  Revolutionary  War  and  that  we  could  really 
get  acquainted  with  one  another  as  neighbors  and  friends. 

I  claim  for  that  small  group  no  superiority  over  others 
who  did  not  share  our  hope.  I  attribute  our  faith  to  the 
fact  that  we  had  been  brought  up  in  families  who  had 
studied  their  own  history  well  enough  to  make  it  impos- 
sible for  them  to  hide  from  their  children  the  fact  that, 
when  the  colonies  were  settled  in  New  England  by  the 
pure  English  race,  the  finest  thing  about  the  pure  English 
race  was  that  it  had  been  greatly  mixed.  Some  of  us 
were  conscious  of  the  fact,  not  merely  that  our  blood  was 
mixed,  but  we  had  a  curiosity  about  our  national  ancestry, 
and  a  desire  to  get  acquainted  with  our  national  ancestry 
through  the  nations  that  had  contributed  to  our  lives ;  and 
we  found  that  there  was  nothing  to  be  ashamed  of  in  any 
of  the  nations.  Our  personal  pride  was  fed  by  what  we 
learned  about  them;  but  at  the  same  time  our  personal 
affections  were  chilled  by  the  mistakes  we  learned  of 
that  had  been  made  by  them  all. 

Working  along  these  lines,  from  that  little  group  nom- 
inally of  one  nationality  but  actually  of  many,  we  have 
come  to  be  a  body  of  seven  million  women  of  twenty-six 
well-organized  national  groups.  These  twenty-six  well- 
organized  national  groups  are  continuing  to  endeavor  to 
get  acquainted  with  one  another,  and  have  also  expanded 
their  endeavor  into  lines  of  actual  social  service  that  are 
the  same  in  all  countries,  and  they  include,  beginning 
with  the  one  for  which  I  stand  before  you  this  morning, 
an  effort  to  achieve  peace  among  the  nations,  to  achieve 
the  displacement  of  war  as  a  method  of  settling  differ- 
ences by  a  method  of  international  arbitration.    This  was 

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Peace  and  Social  Progress 

voted  by  the  women  representing  nine  nations  as  far  back 
as  1899,  representing  three  milHon  women,  and  it  was  the 
first  propaganda  in  which  we  endeavored  to  co-operate. 

At  the  present  time,  our  propaganda  covers  several 
subjects.  One  is,  and  I  think  perhaps  it  is  the  greatest 
one  to  achieve  for  our  respective  countries  and  through- 
out the  world,  that  there  shall  be  the  same  personal  ideal 
of  personal  chastity  for  men  as  for  women,  the  achieve- 
ment of  a  common  moral  standard  for  both  sexes  so  far 
as  personal  purity  is  concerned. 

The  next  great  line  along  which  we  have  attempted  to 
co-operate,  was  in  striving,  not  necessarily  for  suffrage, 
for  we  found  that  under  monarchical  governments  as 
well  as  under  democratic  governments  there  was  a  great 
difference  between  the  rights  and  privileges  of  men  and 
women,  but  to  achieve  for  both  sexes,  in  all  parts  of  the 
world,  the  same  position  before  the  law,  the  same  respon- 
sibility for  civic  progress.  We  know  that,  for  a  republic, 
the  ballot  is  the  best  instrument;  but  it  may  be  different 
in  different  countries. 

We  found  that  all  our  work  would  be  greatly  improved 
by  the  addition  of  another  idea,  and  that  was  international 
education ;  and  so  we  undertook  to  foster  the  efforts  made 
in  every  country  to  gather  groups  of  girls  as  well  as  boys 
and  have  them  exchanged  between  countries  so  that  they 
might  be  educated  in  other  countries,  that  groups  from 
other  countries  might  come  to  us,  and  groups  from  our 
country  go  to  other  countries  for  their  advanced  educa- 
tion. Also  this  advanced  education  was  to  be  furthered 
by  the  definite  exchange  of  literature  bearing  upon  our 
social  and  civic  conditions,  with  corresponding  literature 
of  other  countries. 

I  think  I  have  indicated  enough  of  our  work  to  give 
an  idea  of  our  desires  in  regard  to  social  progress,  and 

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Addresses  World* s  Social  Progress  Congress 

I  think  I  have  said  nothing  that  is  not  included  in  your 
own  scheme.  Doctor  Jordan  has  presented  to  you  the 
scientific  reasons  against  drinking.  Women  do  not  wait 
until  they  get  scientific  proof ;  practical  experience  of  the 
effect  of  drunkenness  on  men  and  the  horror  of  it  among 
women,  has  long  ago  convinced  them  of  the  evil  of  that. 

Of  course,  there  are  many  tributaries  of  all  this  work 
that  will  subdivide  into  a  thousand  branches.  But  if  we 
could  achieve  a  world  where  men  are  as  chaste  in  their 
personal  habits  as  in  their  ideals  they  have  thought  women 
should  be,  and  where  women  shall  be  as  intelligent  and 
as  energetically  active  as  in  their  ideals  they  have  thought 
men  should  be;  where  the  practice  of  temperance  should 
be  universal  for  both  sexes ;  and  where  there  was  a  desire 
to  leap  national  boundaries  and  erase  the  lines  that  have 
been  drawn  by  prejudice,  and  bridge  the  chasms  that  have 
been  more  deeply  digged  by  increasing  prejudice  and 
ignorance:  could  we  achieve  a  world  in  which  we  had 
such  men  and  women,  I  fancy  you  know  without  my 
saying  it,  that  it  would  all  necessarily  have  to  be  accom- 
plished under  conditions  of  peace.  You  know  that 
every  fight  to  achieve  these  forms  of  individual  improve- 
ment, and  the  application  of  the  efforts  of  the  improved 
individual  to  society  in  every  form,  would  necessarily  be, 
everywhere,  helped  by  conditions  of  peace,  and  blocked 
by  war. 

Now  we  have  had  a  new  revelation  of  what  war  can 
do  as  the  enemy  of  social  progress.  All  the  nations  that 
are  involved  in  the  war  in  Europe  at  the  present,  that  is, 
all  but  tw6  of  them,  have  strong  national  councils  of 
women  who  are  the  peers  of  our  own  women,  peers  of  the 
women  of  the  British  council  and  of  the  French  council  in 
desire  and  in  their  native  ability  and  their  grasp  of  the 
problems  which  we  discussed.     All  of  them,  the  women 

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Peace  and  Social  Progress 

of  Servia  and  of  Austria,  the  best  women  of  both  of  these 
countries,  were  working  through  their  national  councils 
for  precisely  the  same  social  ideals,  the  same  lifting  of 
the  moral  standard  for  the  individual  and  the  community. 
Japan  and  Turkey  and  Russia  are  the  only  nations  in- 
volved in  the  war  in  which  women  are  not  co-operating 
in  this  great  international  movement;  and  even  in  every 
one  of  these  countries  there  are,  though  I  am  sure  it  will 
be  news  to  some  of  you,  in  every  one  of  these  countries 
there  is  a  little  group  of  richly  endowed  women,  native 
Russian  women  in  Russia,  native  Turkish  women  in 
Turkey,  and  native  Japanese  women  in  Japan,  who  have 
the  same  ideals  and  who  have  come  together  for  the 
purpose  of  co-operating  with  the  international  movement. 
And  now  has  come  the  war,  and  these  countries  are 
all  involved  in  the  war.  All.  In  the  meantime,  what 
becomes  of  the  work  that  was  being  carried  on?  Well, 
as  it  is  a  law  of  physics,  I  believe,  that  two  bodies  cannot 
occupy  the  same  space  at  the  same  time,  so  it  is  a  cor- 
responding law  of  spiritual  life  that  one  soul  cannot  be 
preoccupied  and  devoted  to  two  opposite  lines  of  en- 
deavor at  the  same  time.  It  is  impossible.  What  are  the 
women  of  these  countries  doing?  I  know.  I  can  give 
you  the  very  latest  reports,  because  within  the  last  ten  days 
I  have  received  in  the  mail  letters  from  eighty-five  of  my 
associates  who  have  been  answering  invitations  to  attend 
this  conference  of  women  workers  which  is  to  be  held  in 
this  building  in  July.  These  women  all  say  the  same 
things :  How  they  want  .to  come,  how  eager  they  are  to 
help  by  giving  their  names  for  the  foreign  section  of  the 
advisory  board,  and  in  every  way  possible.  But  how  can 
they  come?  One  woman,  in  giving  her  answer,  tells  in 
a  larger  way  the  conditions  that  restrain  her  movements ; 
but  they  all  tell  exactly  the  same  story  in  different  ways. 

185 


Addresses  World's  Social  Progress  Congress 

One,  the  president  of  the  Austrian  council  of  women, 
one  of  the  noblest  women  it  has  ever  been  my  pleasure  to 
co-operate  with,  says :  ""'How  can  I  come  ?  You  are  in  a 
big,  neutral  country ;  you  ought  to  be  doing  what  you  are 
doing,  laying  the  foundations  for  peace  and  a  clearer 
understanding  of  war  which  shall  make  war  impossible 
in  the  future  among  civilized  communities.  But  what  can 
I  do  ?  My  only  son  is  now  at  last  in  the  field  with  the  last 
reserves  called  out  for  Austria;  and  before  that,  as  you 
know,  my  fourteen  grandsons  and  nephews  had  been 
scattered  over  the  battlefields  of  Belgium  and  Poland 
and  France  and  Russia.  What  must  I  do?  I  must  do 
what  I  am  doing  and  what  you  would  have  to  do  in  my 
place.  I  am  trying  to  feed  the  hungry  at  home,  and  care 
for  those  returned  to  us  from  the  front.  I  am  trying  to 
stimulate  the  courage  and  faith  of  the  women,  and  they 
are  so  courageous.  I  am  trying  to  stimulate  them  to  have 
courage  to  stand  by  their  posts  as  nurses  and  workers  in 
every  field  where  no  men  are  left  to  work." 

Well,  it  would  seem — would  it  not? — as  if  social  prog- 
ress had  been  rather  blocked  by  the  war  in  Austria. 

It  has  been  blocked  in  the  same  way  everywhere,  and 
we  know  that  the  fruits  of  social  progress,  the  fruits  of 
civilization,  architecture  and  all  forms  of  art,  education 
and  political  advance,  that  have  taken  generations  of 
toilsome,  aspiring  endeavor  to  achieve,  have  been  swept 
away  in  eight  months,  as  fire  sweeps  away  paper.  That 
is  what  war  does,  not  only  for  the  work  itself,  but  for  the 
fruit  of  work;  and  therefore  it  seems  to  me  that  every 
sane  man  and  every  sane  woman  in  the  world  must  know 
that  the  task  of  to-day  is  to  destroy  war.     (Applause.) 

Now,  how  can  war  be  destroyed  ?  Not  by  war.  No, 
my  dear  friends;  if  there  is  a  group  in  the  world  upon 
whose  minds  I  desire  to  impress  that  fact,  it  is  upon  a 

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Peace  and  Social  Progress 

group  of  Californians.  I  wish  I  could  impress  it  upon 
every  one's  mind.  I  wish  I  could  make  the  Kaiser  and 
all  the  great  men,  I  wish  I  could  get  to  them  the  clear 
perception  of  my  humble  mind,  that  prosperity  for  one 
nation  can  never  come  by  crushing  another.  It  is  impos- 
sible, for  instance,  that  the  United  States  should  ever  go 
forward  to  the  achievement  of  its  ideals  by  crushing 
Japan  or  any  other  island  of  the  sea.  Nor  can  Japan,  that 
young  and  generous  empire,  go  forward  to  its  success  by 
crushing  or  curbing  the  United  States.  Can't  we  learn 
the  lesson  ?  Must  the  nations  go  on  through  coming  cen- 
turies slaughtering  one  another,  thinking  that  thereby  na- 
tions are  to  gain?  Is  that  what  we  have  studied  history 
for  ?  We  have  never  read  of  any  ultimate,  final  achieve- 
ment of  glory  or  success  as  the  fruit  of  a  war;  never. 
No  such  thing  can  be  proved  by  history. 

I  myself  believe  so  fully  in  the  evolutionary  method 
of  accomplishing  everything,  because  I  have  seen  that  that 
is  the  method  in  everything  that  I  have  ever  seen  grow. 
I  have  never  seen  an  instantaneous  growth  of  anything; 
but  I  have  seen  everything,  in  fields  and  gardens,  and  in 
the  generations  of  men,  developing  through  slow  and 
toilsome  growth,  and  I  see  that  when  this  growth  be- 
comes conscious,  as  it  does  in  man  alone,  this  conscious- 
ness can  be  appealed  to  to  co-operate  deliberately  with 
the  law  of  evolutionary  progress ;  and  when  this  happens, 
there  is  no  possibility  of  checking  the  advance  and  no 
possibility  of  thwarting  its  arrival  at  the  goal. 

My  dear  friends,  you  know  that  it  is  our  blessed  privi- 
lege, a  happiness  indescribable,  and  a  joy  and  ecstasy  so 
warm  that  I  cannot  trust  myself,  even  by  myself,  to  say 
to  myself  how  blessed  a  privilege  it  is,  to  be  a  human 
being,  alive  in  this  day  of  privilege  and  opportunity. 
Privilege  and  opportunity  for  what?    Are  we  here  for 

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Addresses  World's  Social  Progress  Congress 

purposes  of  determined  destruction,  or  are  we  here  for 
purposes  of  determined,  intelligent,  laborious  construc- 
tion ?  We  believe — do  we  not  ? — that  co-operation,  which 
is  the  law  of  social  progress,  includes  not  only  co-opera- 
tion with  one  another  along  the  old  lines  of  like  co-operat- 
ing with  like  for  ends  which  both  desire,  nor  only  for  the 
co-operation  of  the  unlike  with  the  unlike  for  great  com- 
mon ends  that  perhaps  neither  one  had  at  first  recognized, 
and  the  co-operation  with  the  unlikes  by  means  to  which 
all  the  unlikes  equally  but  differently  contribute,  accord- 
ing to  their  respective  national  genius ;  but  we  believe  that 
this  law  of  the  co-operation  of  the  unlike  means  also  the 
conscious  co-operation  of  the  human  with  the  divine. 
I  believe  that ;  I  believe  that  we  may  appeal  to  that  force 
which  is  within  us  and  which  is  equally  outside  of  us, 
and  by  this  wonderful  co-operation  with  the  divine,  there 
is  no  goal  that  humanity's  greatest  imagination  can  con- 
ceive that  its  social  institutions  may  not  ultimately  demon- 
strate. 

This  must  be  our  inevitable  faith.  But  the  time  as- 
signed me  is  running  short,  and  I  have  hardly  touched 
my  subject.  I  must  speak  to  you  of  that  conference 
which  it  is  the  greatest  privilege  of  my  life  to  have  the 
opportunity  to  organize  here  this  year,  when  the  world  is 
torn  by  war,  when  it  seemed  as  if  it  would  be  impossible 
to  organize  for  permanent  peace;  and  it  is  not  for  tem- 
porary peace  that  this  conference  is  convened,  not  for  a 
mere  Christmas  breathing  spell  in  the  name  of  Him  who 
was  cradled  in  a  manger,  that  the  sinews  of  war  may  be 
strengthened  for  a  greater  struggle;  not  a  mere  Easter 
armistice  so  that,  while  the  lilies  are  growing  which 
symbolize  that  festival,  there  shall  also  grow  more  re- 
serves of  food  and  munitions  of  war.  It  is  for  perma- 
nent peace  that  we  meet,  the  women  of  the  world,  with 

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Peace  and  Social  Progress 

everything  that  that  word  implies,  and  they  know  what 
it  implies.  We,  who  are  the  producers  of  the  race,  we, 
who  in  our  blood  have  brought  forth  every  soldier  that 
is  shedding  his  own  blood  on  the  field,  we,  who  have 
cradled  and  nursed  and  reared  and  taught  men,  shall 
bring  forth  and  cradle  and  nurse  and  teach  no  longer 
for  war.     (Applause.) 

This  all  means  that  there  must  be  a  reorganization  of 
human  society  along  the  same  lines  and  under  the  im- 
pulse of  the  same  principle  that  all  social  progress  shall 
be  achieved;  that  is,  under  the  law  of  co-operation  as 
against  the  law  of  competition.  The  law  of  competition 
in  industrial  life,  and  the  law  of  competition  in  social  life, 
is  just  as  destructive  of  all  that  is  best  as  the  law  of  com- 
petition on  the  battlefield  of  nations.  That  law  must  be 
abandoned,  and  the  law  and  method  of  co-operation  must 
be  adopted.  To  be  adopted  anywhere  with  success,  it 
must  be  adopted  everywhere  with  sincerity.  That  is  the 
law. 

Now,  gentlemen  and  ladies,  what  does  that  imply  so 
far  as  our  daily  work  is  concerned?  There  are  three 
things  to  be  done  instantly  and  permanently.  We  have 
just  as  much  to  do  in  this  nation  as  in  any  other,  and  we 
are  called  to  do  it  here  at  this  time  as  no  other  nation  is. 
We  are  called  to  it  by  the  principles  upon  which  our 
Republic  nominally  founded  and  which  it  is  gradually 
learning  to  apply  to  women  as  well  as  to  men.  We  are 
called  to  it,  not  by  those  ideals  of  the  Republic  alone,  but 
by  our  own  composite,  international  character  as  a  nation. 
I  know,  as  well  as  anybody,  how  much  effort  is  being 
made  by  one  big  nation  on  each  side  of  the  struggle  for 
our  support  on  the  ground  that  American  civilization 
depends  upon  its  success.  But  there  can  be  no  victories 
in  this  war  for  us,  because  for  us  this,  and  every  war, 

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Addresses  World's  Social  Progress  Congress 

is  a  fraternal  war,  a  civil  war  for  us,  though  international 
for  the  nations  involved  in  it.  Our  people  are  an  inter- 
nationalized people.  By  that  fact  we  are  called  upon  to 
unite  in  our  determination  to  make  this  the  last  war.  We 
must  revise  all  our  conceptions  of  patriotism;  we  must 
give  up  as  false  and  as  despicable  many  of  the  concep- 
tions that  we  have  learned  in  its  holy  name.  Patriotism 
should  be  the  love  of  one's  country,  but  not  limited  to 
the  love  of  one  country  or  city,  even  when  that  city  is 
San  Francisco.  It  should  not  be  limited  to  the  love  of 
one  State,  even  when  it  is  a  State  so  rich  and  fertile  as 
California.  It  should  not  be  limited  to  one's  own  country. 
The  moment  that  patriotism  becomes  competitive  and 
conflicting,  that  moment  the  seeds  of  the  destruction  of 
one's  country  are  being  sown. 

We  know  that  individual  vanity  is  a  weakness  and  a 
vice,  and  arrogance  is  a  weakness,  and  often  not  only  a 
weakness  but  a  crime.  We  know  that  boastfulness  in  the 
individual  is  a  vice  that  may  become  a  scandal ;  and  then 
we  inculcate  vanity  to  its  highest  degree,  arrogance  to  its 
highest  power,  boastfulness  in  its  most  audacious  utter- 
ances, and  united  we  call  them  patriotism.  Such  patriot- 
ism is  a  blight  upon  our  national  life.  This  false  instruc- 
tion, this  culture  in  the  organized  aggregate  of  vices  that 
we  despise  in  the  individual,  must  come  to  an  end. 

There  is  another  thing  that  must  be  revised  besides 
patriotism;  that  is,  our  religious  dimension.  It  seems 
a  curious  spectacle;  and  one  wonders  how  the  farther 
progressed  spirits  who  were  once  incorporated  in  the 
flesh  regard  it,  as  they  hear  arising  from  the  heads  of  all 
the  conflicting  armies,  five  of  whom  stand  as  the  heads 
of  great  religious  divisions,  the  prayers  that  are  daily 
rising  to  heaven.  Francis  Joseph  is  the  head  of  the 
Roman  section  of  the  church,  its  secular  head;  and  the 

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Peace  and  Social  Progress 

Czar,  whose  mind  was  once  illuminated  by  the  flooding 
light  which  caused  him  to  call  the  first  peace  conference, 
is  the  head  of  the  Greek  Catholic  Church ;  and  the  Kaiser 
is  the  head  of  one  form  of  Protestant  Christianity;  and 
King  George  is  the  head  of  another;  and  each  of  these 
invokes  all  destruction  upon  the  armies  of  the  others; 
each  one  prays  to  the  same  God  to  call  down  all  blessings 
upon  his  own  particular  army.  Would  it  not  be  ludicrous, 
if  it  were  not  so  monstrous  and  so  tragic?  For  compet- 
itive patriotism  incarnates  all  the  vices  that  we  repudiate 
in  the  individual.  How  does  each  of  these  countries 
treat  the  individual?  There  is  not  one  country  now  in 
the  field  that  does  not  classify  murder  as  the  worst  of 
crimes  and  pronounce  upon  the  murderer  the  heaviest  of 
penalties.  One  weak,  isolated  individual  may  not  assail 
the  life  of  another  isolated  individual  without  being 
called  a  murderer;  and  if  he  has  plotted  his  deed  and 
committed  it  in  the  dark,  he  is  an  assassin,  and  that  is  the 
only  thing  more  atrocious  than  a  murderer. 

Yet  organized  society,  under  the  leadership  and  by  the 
order  of  the  national  governments,  may,  for  years,  plot 
and  scheme ;  and  all  of  them  have  done  it  to  some  extent 
and  have  kept  a  standing  army  to  teach  citizens  the  law 
of  blood.  They  may  do  this  if  they  are  organized,  may 
assail  the  lives  of  other  organized  nationalities  and  slay 
by  the  million,  and  be  slaughtered  by  the  hundreds  of 
thousands.  Yet  an  intelligent  child  knows  that  this  is 
infinitely  more  murder  than  the  taking  of  one  life  by  one 
individual,  just  as  the  long-conceived,  laboriously  pre- 
pared-for  crime  is  worse  than  the  crime  of  the  individual. 
(Applause.) 

Now,  we  must  shape  our  morality  to  this  new  code. 
There  is  no  escape  from  it  for  any  one  who  claims  to 


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Addresses  World's  Social  Progress  Congress 

have  any  knowledge  either  of  the  elements  of  logic  or 
of  the  first  principles  of  Christianity. 

There  is  one  more  thing  that  we  must  do,  gentlemen 
and  ladies.  We  are  called  to  the  enormous  task  of 
internationalizing  and  organizing  the  human  heart.  In 
all  other  respects  we  are  already  an  internationalized 
people  to  a  greater  extent  than  any  other  people.  There 
is  no  people  that  is  not  internationalized  in  some  degree. 
We  are  already  internationalized  in  our  industry,  in  our 
wealth  and  our  property.  When  prices  go  up  in  one 
country,  they  go  up  in  others.  We  are  internationalized 
in  our  culture.  We  always  have  been;  we  should  not 
have  had  any  culture  otherwise.  No  modern  nation 
originates  its  own  culture,  and  we  have  never  yet  found 
where  the  cradle  of  culture  was.  The  first  beginnings  of 
human  expression  were  in  psalm  and  prophecy  and  story 
and  history,  and  gradually  science  evolved,  but  we  cannot 
say  where  it  first  began.  Our  culture  is  international  or 
it  would  be  nil.  Everything  connected  with  our  life  at 
the  present  time,  our  food  even,  is  international.  The 
most  self-satisfied  Californian  that  ever  grew  up  in  this 
State  would  be  half  starved  by  the  monotony  of  his  food 
if  he  ate  only  what  was  produced  in  California,  and  none 
of  it  had  felt  the  touch  of  a  more  artistic  hand  than  the 
Californians  have  yet  developed.  Even  olives  and  prunes 
must  be  sent  abroad  to  get  the  culinary  blessing  of  the 
French  chef  before  they  are  good  enough  to  be  sold,  at 
a  four-fold  price,  to  the  native  Californian.  Even  among 
the  simple  costumes  worn  here  this  morning,  there  is 
many  a  hat  and  suit  that  was  manufactured  outside  of 
our  own  country.  We  are  internationalized  in  every  re- 
spect, excepting  in  our  affections.  We  have  scorned  the 
emotions,  and  yet,  what  is  war?  War  could  not  be 
carried   on  at  all   except  by  the  agency   of  organized 

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Peace  and  Social  Progress 

emotion.  Very  well,  then,  it  can  be  defeated  only  by  the 
agency  of  the  opposite,  equally  well-organized  emotional 
activities  of  the  world.     (Applause.) 

The  only  cure  for  hate  is  love.  The  only  cure  for 
organized  competition  is  organized  co-operation  and 
human  affection.  Upon  these  basic  principles,  the  Con- 
ference of  July  4,  5,  6,  and  7  will  be  held.  Gentlemen 
and  ladies,  I  am  here  to  invite  your  presence.  The  meet- 
ings will  be  held  somewhere  in  this  civic  auditorium, 
whether  by  gathering  fragments  of  our  conference  in 
separate  halls  where  they  can  hear,  or  by  aggregating 
these  fragments  into  the  great  central  hall  where  they 
can  see.  There  will  be  enough  of  us  to  fill  and  overflow 
it.  I  feel  sure  that  our  combined  presence  in  the  name  of 
a  great  movement  and  a  great  idea  will  not  be  fruitless. 

Women  are  summoned  from  all  the  countries  in 
Europe  that  have  been  so  distraught  by  the  war,  from  the 
belligerent  and  from  the  neutral,  and  only  financial  in- 
ability to  get  here  will  keep  them  from  coming;  and  I 
cannot  believe  that  the  United  States  will  let  the  women 
who  desire  to  come  be  impeded  by  financial  inability. 
This  glorious  exposition  is  to  be  for  a  year  the  world's 
center;  the  conferences  to  be  held  here  will  make  it  the 
spiritual  center,  and  every  one  is  co-operating  to  make  it 
a  success.  The  countries,  one  after  another,  are  form- 
ing residential  centers,  residential  committees,  with  some- 
one as  its  chairman,  and  this  stands  as  a  little  basis  of 
union  between  the  local  group  and  the  corresponding 
nation  abroad.  And  when  we  get  together  here,  we  shall 
represent  the  world's  highest  hopes,  sustained  by  the 
world's  supremest  faith.  We  shall  gather  here  in  the 
high  consciousness  of  the  co-operation  with  divinity  for 
the  perfection  of  humanity. 


193 


Chapter  XV. 
PUBLIC  UTILITIES  AND  SOCIAL  PROGRESS 

BY  HON.  FRANCIS  J.  HENEY 

I  feel  as  if  I  owed  an  apology  for  coming  here  to-night 
to  talk  to  you  at  all,  because  I  have  not  had  a  single 
moment  of  time  in  which  even  to  arrange  my  thoughts 
on  the  subject  of  this  talk.  I  did  expect  to  prepare  some- 
thing which  could  be  printed,  but  unfortunately  I  am  liv- 
ing in  Los  Angeles,  and  other  matters  interfered,  and  at 
the  last  moment  it  was  absolutely  impossible.  So  I  am 
just  going  to  give  you  a  talk  and  not  a  lecture. 

I  believe  that  every  man  who  has  done  public  work 
can  be  of  more  use  in  explaining  and  illustrating  his  argu- 
ment by  what  he  has  learned  from  his  own  work,  than 
in  any  other  way.  I  was  brought  to  that  conviction 
partly  by  my  own  experience.  In  1906,  I  was  urged  by 
a  few  prominent  men  in  this  community  to  try  to  clean 
up  the  corrupt  municipal  conditions  existing  here,  and  I 
consented  to  undertake  the  work.  At  the  time  I  under- 
took that  work,  I  had  been  practicing  law  for  about 
twenty-three  years.  I  had  received  a  common-school 
education  and  part  of  a  college  education.  I  had  read, 
like  most  lawyers,  some  general  literature.  I  had  started 
out  at  the  age  of  twenty-one,  a  Jeffersonian  Democrat, 
believing,  as  Jefferson  did,  that  the  government  is  a 
thing  to  be  feared ;  that  the  people  of  a  country  can  only 
lose  their  liberty  by  its  being  taken  away  from  them  by  a 
second  party  known  as  the  government,  or  that  the  gov- 
ernment is  something  distinct  and  apart  from  the  mass 
of  the  people  and  that  the  government  may  steal  your 

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Public  Utilities  and  Social  Progress 

liberty  away  from  you.  It  is  easy  to  understand  how 
Jefferson  and  the  men  of  his  day  acquired  that  idea.  Up 
to  that  time  there  never  had  been  a  democracy,  in  the 
national  sense.  When  we  speak  of  a  nation,  as  we  do  in 
these  modern  days,  in  the  modern  sense  of  the  term 
"nation,"  we  must  realize  that  there  had  never  been  any 
such  thing  as  a  democracy  in  the  history  of  the  world. 
Under  the  different  forms  of  government  which  had 
existed,  the  liberty  of  the  people  never  had  been  stolen 
from  them  except  by  those  who  ruled  them. 

Great  inequality  of  wealth,  whereby  an  immense  pro- 
portion of  all  the  wealth  of  the  nation  gets  into  the  hands 
of  a  comparatively  very  few  people,  thus  leaving  the  mass 
of  the  people  in  poverty,  had  always  hitherto  been  brought 
about  through  the  power  exercised  by  government.  The 
king  would  grant  franchises  for  special  privileges  to  some 
of  his  favorites,  or  the  emperor,  or  whoever  was  ruling, 
would  make  large  grants  of  land  to  his  favorites,  and  thus 
start  inequality  of  wealth  in  that  way.  These  franchises, 
which  enabled  a  man,  for  instance,  to  do  some  special 
kind  of  business  for  the  entire  nation;  these  privileges 
were  always  sought  from  the  rulers  of  the  nation  who  had 
the  right  to  give  them  out.  Consequently,  it  was  logical, 
perfectly  logical,  for  men  to  think  that  the  danger  to  the 
people  of  any  country  came  from  the  rulers,  from  the 
government. 

But  in  a  democracy  all  that  is  changed;  and  in  this 
democracy  we  were  very  careful  in  preparing  the  Con- 
stitution of  the  United  States  to  protect  ourselves  against 
an  enemy  who  has  never  appeared  and  who  never  will 
appear.  We  are  in  no  danger  of  losing  our  liberty  from 
the  Government,  but  from  the  power  behind  the  Govern- 
ment. Our  danger  comes  from  the  fact  that  under  this 
form  of  government  the  inequality  of  wealth  has  been 

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Addresses  World's  Social  Progress  Congress 

brought  about  by  special  privileges,  and  all  these  special 
privileges  are  supposed  to  come  from  us  instead  of  from 
that  second  party,  the  Government.  I  say  they  are  sup- 
posed to  come  from  us,  because  that  is  purely  a  supposi- 
tion; they  never  do  get  these  special  privileges  from  us. 
They  nominate  the  public  officers  for  us,  not  dishonest 
men,  but  men  whom  they  know  in  advance  believe  that 
the  way  to  develop  a  country  is  to  give  it  away  to  the 
few,  because  the  few  know  how  to  develop  it.  After  they 
have  nominated  honest  men  with  these  beliefs,  the  honest 
men  give  these  privileges  away,  and  thus  we  have  great 
inequality  of  wealth  brought  about  in  this  country  more 
rapidly  than  anywhere  else  in  the  world. 

Of  course,  there  was  another  reason  for  the  rapidity 
with  which  it  occurred,  and  that  was,  that  about  a  hun- 
dred and  fifty  years  ago  a  man  discovered  the  principles 
of  the  steam  engine.  That  revolutionized  mankind  and 
started  the  growth  of  the  modern  city.  That  started 
modern  manufacturing.  That  made  it  possible  for  one 
man  or  one  corporation  to  have  a  million  men  working 
for  it,  and  it  made  it  possible  for  one  man  or  corporation 
to  control  the  energy  of  nature  to  such  an  extent  that  it 
might  be  equivalent  to  the  labor  of  fifty  million  men 
creating  wealth  every  day.  Is  it  any  wonder  that  wealth 
has  grown  more  rapidly  in  the  past  twenty-five  years  than 
ever  before  in  the  history  of  the  world?  It  was  because 
in  the  last  fifty  years  we  have  developed  the  energy  of 
nature  to  take  the  place  of  the  energy  of  men  in  creating 
wealth,  and  the  energy  of  nature  which  we  have  brought 
to  this  task  is  so  many  times  greater  than  the  energy  of 
all  the  human  beings  on  earth  that  we  are  able  to  do 
from  a  hundred  to  a  thousand  times  as  much  work  as 
ever  was  done  before. 

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Public  Utilities  and  Social  Progress 

These  natural  resources  are  only  five  in  number,  and 
are  of  such  a  character  as  to  be  easily  susceptible  of 
monopolization:  timber,  coal,  oil,  natural  gas,  and  water 
power.  The  first  one  we  learned  about  was  timber,  and 
in  Europe  they  cut  down  the  forests  to  run  the  machinery 
with,  and  during  the  last  hundred  years  they  have  been 
reforesting.  After  a  while,  they  found  a  black  rock  from 
which  they  could  get  energy  to  run  the  machinery,  in 
place  of  getting  it  from  wood,  and  they  called  that  coal. 
Up  to  1850,  we  had  not  produced  in  this  country  more 
than  about  forty-five  million  tons  of  coal;  last  year  we 
produced  and  used  over  five  hundred  million  tons  of  coal. 
All  that  vast  energy  was  working  for  us  creating  wealth ; 
and  how  much  do  you  think  it  can  do?  Well,  we  speak 
of  horse-power.  Do  you  know  what  we  mean  by  horse- 
power? We  mean  what  an  average  draft  horse  can  do  in 
eight  hours.  How  many  men  does  it  take  to  do  the  work 
of  one  average  draft  horse?  It  takes  twelve  average  men. 
How  many  horse-power  do  you  think  we  got  out  of  that 
coal,  the  five  hundred  million  tons  of  coal?  And  who 
owns  that  coal,  and  therefore  owns  that  energy?  Why, 
a  few  railroads.  And  that  is  the  first  time  I  have  reached 
a  public  utility  to-night.  About  seven  or  eight  railroads 
all  controlled  by  seven  or  eight  men,  own  seventy  per 
cent  of  the  anthracite  coal  in  the  United  States,  and  con- 
trol ninety-eight  per  cent  of  the  anthracite  coal. 

The  production,  but  not  the  ownership,  of  bituminous 
coal  has  been  monopolized,  and  one  man  has  fixed  the 
price  of  coal  in  the  United  States  during  the  past  twenty- 
five  years.  That  man  held  the  power  in  his  hands  of 
making  babies  freeze  to  death  by  raising  the  price  of 
coal  to  the  point  where  the  poor  couldn't  purchase  it.  He 
not  only  held  that  power;  he  exercised  that  power.  He 
did  make  many  babies  freeze  to  death,  and  yet  I  suppose 

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Addresses  World's  Social  Progress  Congress 

he  is  a  Christian  gentleman.  But  he  has  never  seen  this 
economic  truth.  If  he  had,  perhaps  he  would  stop  doing  it. 

I  remember  Mr.  Baer,  the  president  of  the  Reading 
road,  that  owns  sixty-five  per  cent  of  all  the  anthracite 
coal  in  the  United  States,  said  that  he  was  trustee  over 
it  by  selection  of  the  Almighty.  This  man  has  absolutely 
controlled  the  price  of  anthracite  coal;  this  man  has  had 
power  to  levy  a  tax  on  you  and  me  whenever  he  pleased 
(and  he  has  pleased  to  do  so  very  often).  The  chances 
are  that  you  have  paid  some  of  that  tax  in  the  clothes 
you  have  on,  if  they  were  made  by  the  power  produced  by 
that  anthracite  coal,  and  they  were  certainly  carried  across 
the  continent  by  trains  run  by  some  of  the  Reading  com- 
pany's anthracite  coal ;  and  to  that  extent  you  have  paid 
a  part  of  the  tax  that  went  into  his  pockets.  The  furni- 
ture you  are  sitting  on,  the  floor  under  your  feet,  every- 
thing in  this  building,  paid  a  tax,  and  a  large  tax,  to  the 
same  individual  in  the  same  way. 

How  did  we  get  into  this  fix?  We  were  developing; 
modern  civilization  was  just  coming  along.  We  didn't 
look  ahead  far  enough.  Some  few  citizens  did  see,  but 
they  couldn't  convince  the  rest  of  us.  They  didn't  con- 
vince me.  I  never  saw  the  light  until  I  saw  it  from  inves- 
tigations made  behind  the  closed  doors  of  a  grand  jury  in 
this  city,  in  1906.  That  is  why  I  say  that  a  man  must  talk 
from  his  own  experience.  The  political  economy  that  I 
learned  at  the  university  was  worse  than  nothing ;  it  had 
to  be  unlearned  again.  My  law  studies  taught  me  nothing. 

It  didn't  take  these  men  long  to  monopoHze  this  coal, 
because  we  only  started  using  it  to  any  considerable  ex- 
tent in  1850.  Then  followed  oil ;  that  wasn't  discovered 
until  1859.  Last  year  California  produced,  in  round  num- 
bers, a  hundred  million  barrels — more  than  any  nation 
on  earth  produced,  except  the  United  States,  and  more 

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Public  Utilities  and  Social  Progress 

than  any  other  State  in  the  Union.  Now,  oil  is  an  energy 
that  the  Almighty  created  according  to  his  divine  wisdom, 
and  it  is  found  as  far  under  the  ground,  in  places,  as  three 
thousand  or  more  feet  in  depth.  Man  has  learned  to 
drive  pipes  down  and  get  it.  What  does  that  mean? 
Three  barrels  of  oil  contain  as  much  energy  to  run  ma- 
chinery with  as  a  ton  of  coal.  It  is  more  economical.  It 
can  make  furniture;  it  can  make  framework  for  houses, 
clothes,  women's  hats;  it  can  make  anything  and  every- 
thing that  mankind  can  make,  practically,  because  prac- 
tically everything  now  can  be  made  by  machinery.  But 
the  machines  alone  do  not  and  cannot  make  anything;  it 
requires  energy  to  run  it.  Your  body  is  a  machine;  it 
can't  make  anything  except  with  energy,  and  you  have 
to  put  the  fuel  into  the  machine  to  run  it. 

Now,  we  have  these  natural  energies,  and  oil  is  one  of 
them.  There  is  miUions  upon  millions  of  men's  energy 
in  oil.  And  that  oil  belonged  to  all  of  us  in  common. 
There  is  more  of  it  in  the  United  States  than  anywhere 
else  on  earth.  How  did  we  get  rid  of  it?  We  don't  own 
it  now.  John  D.  Rockefeller  owns  a  considerable  portion 
of  it.  How  did  we  get  rid  of  it  ?  By  unwise  laws ;  that 
is  all.  Let  me  put  it  another  way.  The  greatest  of  all 
the  troubles  of  mankind  is  poverty.  Do  you  know  what 
that  is  the  result  of?  Why,  it  is  brought  about  by  laws. 
Our  troubles  don't  come  from  law-breakers,  the  big 
troubles;  they  come  from  law-makers.  I  wasted  a  lot 
of  time  going  after  law-breakers;  and  now,  when  I  say 
that  it  was  a  waste  of  time,  in  a  sense,  I  am  called  incon- 
sistent ;  but  it  isn't  inconsistency.  It  is  merely  an  awaken- 
ing. At  the  time  I  commenced  prosecuting  men  in  San 
Francisco,  I  believed  that  these  few  men  were  the  real 
cause  of  the  trouble.     Now  I  know  that  the  trouble 

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Addresses  World's  Social  Progress  Congress 

started  away  back,  and  that  it  started  with  our  law- 
makers.    (Applause.) 

And  I  know  that  the  whole  thing  is  due  to  a  want  of 
understanding  of  economic  principles  by  the  masses. 
When  )'ou  tell  anybody  that  you  are  going  to  lecture  on 
political  economy,  they  won't  come.  In  the  first  place, 
they  will  say,  "What  is  the  use?  I  couldn't  understand 
political  economy."  Why,  friends,  I  can  now  make  polit- 
ical economy  so  plain  that  even  the  president  of  a  univer- 
sity can  understand  it. 

Let  me  go  on  with  a  little  of  this.  I  have  been  giving 
you  political  economy  now  for  thirty  minutes.  Let  me 
give  you  a  little  more  of  it.  Only  twenty-five  years  ago, 
or  thirty  at  the  outside,  we  discovered  how  to  take  hydro- 
electric power  from  falling  water.  That  is  the  greatest 
blessing  that  ever  happened  to  mankind.  We  don't  begin 
to  realize  its  possibilities  yet.  Let  me  indicate  a  little 
of  it  to  you.  In  the  United  States  to-day,  in  public  owner- 
ship, we  still  have  at  least  four  hundred  million  horse- 
power of  water-power  in  falling  water,  over  which  the 
federal  government  has  control.  I  am  giving  you  the 
estimate  of  the  federal  authorities  whose  business  it  is  to 
investigate  and  report  upon  this  matter.  You  remember 
that  I  told  you  that  it  took  twelve  men  to  do  the  work  of 
one  horse-power ;  that  is,  the  work  that  an  average  draft 
horse  will  do  in  eight  hours.  When  I  tell  you  that  we 
own  four  hundred  million  horse-power  in  energy,  that  we 
still  own  in  common  and  that  Rockefeller  hasn't  got  yet, 
I  mean  that  we  own  the  energy  of  twelve  times  that  many 
men ;  that  is,  four  billion  eight  hundred  million  men 
working  eight  hours  a  day  forever,  because  running  water 
will  last  forever.  Your  hydro-electric  power  will  last  as 
long  as  the  powers  of  nature  continue  to  operate.  So  that 
you  own  in  common  the  energy  of  four  billion  eight  hun- 

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Public  Utilities  and  Social  Progress 

dred  million  average  men  working  eight  hours  a  day 
forever. 

What  of  it?  If  you  only  know  how  to  put  it  to  work 
and  make  it  work  for  you,  it  can  make  all  the  clothes  and 
furniture  and  automobiles  and  everything  else  that  you 
want.    You  own  it ;  and  you  can  use  it. 

Let  me  show  you  the  other  side  of  the  picture  now. 
There  are  only  these  five  things  with  which  you  can  run 
machinery:  timber,  oil,  natural  gas,  coal,  and  water- 
power.  Those  are  all  that  have  been  discovered  up  to 
date  by  mankind.  Now,  let  me  own  all  the  timber,  oil, 
coal,  natural  gas,  and  water-power,  and  I  will  let  you 
own  everything  else  in  the  world,  and  I  will  give  you  all 
the  timber  you  want  for  boards  and  for  furniture  and  for 
any  other  purpose  except  fuel,  and  I  will  give  you  all  you 
want  for  fuel,  if  you  won't  run  machinery  with  it.  I  will 
hold  that  coal  and  oil  and  natural  gas  and  water-power 
and  timber,  and  you  may  have  all  the  gold  and  silver 
mines  and  the  land,  the  orchards  and  farms;  and  do  you 
know  what  will  happen  ?  You  will  all  work  for  me.  You 
will  become  industrial  slaves,  with  one  alternative:  you 
can  go  back  a  hundred  and  fifty  years  in  civilization  and 
stay  there,  if  you  wish,  and  not  become  slaves  to  me.  But 
if  you  want  modern  civilization,  you  will  have  to  pay  the 
tax  to  me,  whatever  I  say  you  shall  pay,  if  I  own  just 
those  five  things. 

Now,  why  is  this  true?  Because  modern  civilization 
is  based  on  machinery,  and  machinery  won't  run  unless 
you  have  wood,  or  coal,  or  natural  gas,  or  oil,  or  water- 
power  to  run  it.  You  would  have  to  give  up  electric 
lights  and  go  back  to  tallow  candles.  You  would  have  to 
give  up  street  cars  and  steam  cars  and  steam  boats.  You 
would  have  to  go  back  to  the  old  wagon  drawn  by  horses 
and  oxen.     Why,  you  couldn't  even  run  a  Ford.     Can't 

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Addresses  World's  Social  Progress  Congress 

you  see  it?  Not  until  you  get  some  of  my  coal,  wood,  oil, 
natural  gas,  or  water-power.  You  can't  turn  iron  ore 
into  steel;  and  even  if  you  had  your  rails,  you  couldn't 
run  an  engine  on  them  until  you  got  some  of  my  coal, 
wood,  oil,  or  natural  gas.  Let  me  own  these  five  things ; 
you  can  own  everything  else;  and  you  will  all  work  for 
me,  and  gradually  I  will  take  enough  away  from  each 
of  you  until  finally  you  will  sink  below  the  poverty  line. 
That  is  political  economy.    Simple,  isn't  it  ? 

What  has  happened  to  these  things?  I  didn't  tell  you 
what  happened  to  the  timber.  Four-fifths  of  the  timber 
in  the  United  States  is  in  private  ownership.  They  talk 
about  our  great  national  forests;  but  four-fifths  of  all 
the  standing  timber  in  the  United  States  is  in  private 
ownership,  and  two  hundred  men  own  eighty  per  cent  of 
it.  I  have  forgotten  how  many  millions  of  acres  it  is. 
There  is  a  recent  report  upon  it  by  the  Secretary  of  the 
Interior.  How  did  these  two  hundred  men  get  that 
timber?  By  law.  Your  law-makers  are  primarily  re- 
sponsible for  it.  Why  did  you  lose  your  coal?  Bad 
laws;  your  law-makers  are  primarily  responsible  for  the 
fact  that  these  railroads  own  eighty-eight  per  cent  and 
control  ninety-eight  per  cent  of  the  coal.  How  about 
the  oil?  The  Standard  Oil  Company  has  a  monopoly  of 
that  to-day,  and  is  getting  a  monopoly  of  that  produced  in 
California.  Natural  gas?  That  goes  with  the  oil.  How 
about  your  water-power?  About  nine-tenths  of  the  water- 
power  developed  up  to  date  is  in  the  hands  of  something 
like  ten  corporations.  Three  corporations  own  consid- 
erably over  sixty  per  cent  of  the  water-power  developed 
in  the  State  of  California  up  to  date.  Do  you  remember 
several  years  ago  that  there  was  a  coal  strike  in  England, 
and  there  was  a  coal  strike  threatened  in  the  anthracite 
region  in  Pennsylvania?     I  happened  to  be  in  Massa- 

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Public  Utilities  and  Social  Progress 

chiisetts  in  a  shoe  manufacturing  town;  you  know  we 
make  two  hundred  and  fifty  milHon  pairs  of  shoes  in  the 
United  States  by  machinery  every  year.  I  said  to  one  of 
these  manufacturers,  "What  coal  do  you  people  use?" 
He  said,  "We  use  anthracite  coal,  and  we  are  walking 
the  floor  because,  if  the  strike  takes  place  in  the  anthracite 
coal  regions,  every  shoe  manufacturing  plant  will  have  to 
close  down  here  in  this  town  of  Brockton,  and  every  one 
of  us  will  go  broke."  And  that  meant  that  all  the  banks 
in  the  town  would  go  broke,  and  that  thousands  of  people 
would  be  thrown  out  of  employment.  That  meant  that 
practically  every  manufacturing  plant  in  the  New  England 
States  run  by  anthracite  coal  would  have  to  close  down. 
At  the  same  time  the  strike  was  on  in  England.  And 
what  happened?  Lloyd  George  had  to  force  through 
Parliament  a  minimum  wage  law,  because  the  owners  of 
the  coal  miners  refused  to  compromise  with  the  strikers. 
Forty  or  fifty  men  owned  all  the  mines  in  England.  These 
men  were  not  the  Government ;  they  were  private  parties. 
The  king  of  England  didn't  exercise  or  possess  anywhere 
near  the  power  over  the  welfare  of  the  people  of  England 
that  these  forty  or  fifty  men  did,  because  if  they  refused 
to  compromise  and  take  out  any  coal,  every  steel  plant 
in  England  would  have  closed  down,  and  every  mill  and 
every  manufacturing  plant  would  have  closed  down,  and 
England's  forty  million  people  depend  almost  entirely 
upon  manufacturing.  So  these  forty  or  fifty  men  had 
more  power  than  the  king  of  England. 

At  that  same  time,  there  was  a  strike  threatened  in  our 
anthracite  coal  fields.  I  asked,  "Who  will  determine 
whether  the  strike  will  take  place  or  not?"  And  they 
said,  "Why,  the  owners  of  the  coal  fields."  I  said,  "Who 
owns  the  coal  fields?"  and  they  stopped  to  think.  They 
said,  "Eight  railroads,  and  the  Reading  dominates."    Then 

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Addresses  World's  Social  Progress  Congress 

I  said,  "In  reality,  whoever  controls  the  railroads,  con- 
trols the  situation.  Who  controls  the  eight  railroads?" 
"Morgan."  He  was  then  alive,  and  was  over  in  Europe 
somewhere  on  a  pleasure  trip  buying  bric-a-brac.  And  in 
the  hands  of  Pierpont  Morgan  in  Europe,  thus  rested  the 
welfare  of  the  business  men  of  this  country.  Why,  I 
thought  we  had  a  democracy  here ! 

Do  you  see  how  essential  it  is  to  understand  something 
about  political  economy,  before  you  can  even  begin  to 
know  how  to  vote  ?  It  isn't  material  whether  a  man  calls 
himself  a  Democrat  or  a  Republican  or  a  Socialist  or  a 
Progressive,  or  what  he  calls  himself.  The  material  ques- 
tion is.  How  is  he  going  to  vote  on  matters  that  affect 
the  creation  of  inequality  of  wealth  in  the  country? — and 
the  monopoly  of  nature's  energy  does  this  on  a  gigantic 
scale. 

When  I  went  to  work  here  in  San  Francisco,  in  1906, 
Professor  John  Graham  Brooks  came  out  from  Harvard 
University,  where  he  was  Professor  of  Sociology.  He 
said  to  me,  "Mr.  Heney,  don't  you  think  that  the  public 
ownership  of  public  utilities  is  the  only  solution  for  the 
graft  conditions  existing  in  our  large  cities?"  My  reply 
was,  "I  should  hate  to  think  so."  I  was  still  a  Jefferson- 
ian  Democrat  in  my  beliefs.  I  had  to  have  it  knocked 
into  me ;  I  never  did  get  to  see  it  until  after  I  found  that 
the  people  of  San  Francisco  couldn't  rule ;  that,  as  a  mat- 
ter of  fact,  the  few  men  who  own  the  public  utilities 
could  break  down  our  courts,  and  could  absolutely  pre- 
vent the  doing  of  justice;  could  scoff  at  the  law;  could 
do  what  they  pleased ;  and  then  I  commenced  to  see  that 
there  was  something  that  I  didn't  understand,  and  finally 
the  clouds  rolled  away  and  I  began  to  see  that  there  is 
only  one  cure,  and  that  John  Graham  Brooks  had  named 
it :  public  ownership  of  public  utilities. 

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Public  Utilities  and  Social  Progress 

Now,  are  there  any  answers  to  the  argument  that  we 
should  own  the  pubHc  utilities?  One  is  that  we  couldn't 
run  them  as  efficiently  as  private  owners  do.  Another 
one  is  that  it  would  cost  us  more  to  run  them.  Another 
one  is  that  our  government  would  be  more  corrupt  than 
it  was  before;  that  men  go  into  office  now  to  steal,  and 
what  would  they  do  if  we  owned  the  public  utilities? 
Then  there  would  be  much  more  to  steal.  There  is  noth- 
ing in  any  one  of  these  arguments.  I  used  to  think  there 
was,  and  made  those  arguments  myself;  but  there  is  a 
complete  answer  for  every  one.  But  if  I  was  absolutely 
positive  that  we  would  lose  money  running  them,  and 
that  we  could  not  run  them  as  efficiently,  I  would  still, 
nevertheless,  be  a  strong  advocate  of  public  ownership 
of  public  utilities.  Why?  Because,  after  all,  the  moral 
well-being,  as  well  as  the  economic  welfare  of  our  people, 
is  the  essential  thing;  and  I  want  to  tell  you  that  just  as 
long  as  you  have  private  ownership  of  public  utilities,  you 
are  going  to  have  a  temptation  that  will  destroy  the  moral 
fiber  of  some  of  your  most  enterprising  financiers;  you 
are  going  to  have  big  bankers  who  would  be  ashamed  to 
admit  to  their  children  what  they  do  down  in  the  bank; 
every  time  there  is  an  election,  you  are  going  to  have  a 
slush  fund  furnished  by  some  of  the  biggest  men  finan- 
cially, and  some  of  the  most  enterprising  men  in  the  com- 
munity, men  who  could  be  and  would  be  good  citizens  if 
you  took  this  temptation  away  from  them.  I  am  not 
claiming  that  I  am  any  better  than  others;  I  am  not 
claiming  that  if  I  were  in  the  position  of  some  of  these 
men  that  I  might  not  do  the  same  thing;  I  am  not  here 
for  the  purpose  of  telling  you  how  good  I  am  and  how 
bad  they  are.  I  am  merely  telling  you  that  your  system 
is  wrong,  and  that  your  system  produces  corruption,  and 

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Addresses  World's  Social  Progress  Congress 

will  continue  to  do  it  as  long  as  you  have  that  system. 
(Applause.) 

Fifty  years  ago,  Boss  Tweed  was  indicted  in  New 
York  City.  He  never  got  into  the  penitentiary;  there 
was  never  but  one  political  boss  got  into  the  penitentiary 
anywhere  in  the  United  States,  and  that  one  got  in  by  an 
accident  and  a  technicality ;  he  happened  to  get  the  worst 
of  the  technicality.  It  was  very  unfortunate;  they  had 
planned  it  that  he  was  never  to  go,  and  if  it  hadn't  been 
for  a  slip — one  of  the  judges  made  a  trip  East  at  the 
wrong  time  and  so  created  a  technicality — he  would  still 
be  out  and  around  here.  I  would  say  he  would  be  more 
respected  and  honored  than  the  man  who  tried  to  put  him 
in;  but  he  would  certainly  be  more  welcome  in  some  of 
the  largest  banks  in  the  city. 

Now,  I  say  that  this  private  ownership  of  our  public 
utilities  is  the  cause  of  the  trouble.  How  did  that  come 
about?  Cities  commenced  to  grow  more  and  more  when 
we  commenced  to  use  machinery  and  to  manufacture 
imder  the  modern  system,  and  there  was  a  tendency  to 
draw  men  into  the  cities  where  employment  could  be  had 
working  in  factories.  That  grew  and  grew,  and  larger 
and  larger  bodies  of  people  got  to  living  together,  and  as 
a  result  of  this  form  of  civilization,  quite  a  number  of 
things  developed  as  necessary  public  utilities.  I  have  had 
men  argue  with  me  that  you  could  make  bread  a  public 
utility,  and  that,  therefore,  if  the  street  cars  are  owned 
by  the  public,  bakeries  ought  to  be.  I  am  sure  the 
slaughter  houses  ought  to  be  so  that  diseased  meat  cannot 
be  sold  to  the  people.  Europe  does  this,  and  the  meat  is 
inspected  by  public  officials.  But  public  utilities  are  those 
things  which  are  essential  to  the  life  of  a  city,  municipal 
public  utilities,  which  practically  every  person  in  the  city 
has  to  use  to  some  extent,  and  which  require  a  franchise 

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Public  Utilities  and  Social  Progress 

to  authorize  a  man  to  operate  the  business.  It  thus  be- 
comes a  special  privilege.  Bread-making  isn't  that.  But 
running  a  telephone  is,  because  you  have  to  have  the  spe- 
cial privilege  of  being  authorized  to  run  wires  along  the 
streets  that  belong  to  the  public,  or  through  houses  or  in 
other  places  that  do  not  belong  to  you.  That  privilege  is 
what  distinguishes  it. 

What  is  another  public  utility?  Street  cars.  What  is 
another  ?  Lighting  by  electricity  or  gas,  because  you  have 
to  have  the  privilege  of  using  the  public  streets  in  a  way 
that  the  general  public  doesn't  use  them,  for  wires  and 
pipes,  etc. 

What  else  ?  We  have  lighting,  heating,  transportation, 
water,  and  telephones.  For  water,  the  laying  of  the  pipes 
is  a  special  privilege.  So  you  see  what  the  distinction  in 
these  things  is,  which  we  call  public  utilities.  Originally 
carrying  off  the  sewage  in  the  city  was  done  by  private  in- 
dividuals or  corporations,  constructing  sewers  and  charg- 
ing for  the  privilege  of  using  them.  There  was  a  time 
when  there  were  no  public  schools ;  they  were  all  privately 
conducted.  There  was  a  time  when  there  were  no  public 
jails;  the  public  paid  private  people  to  conduct  private 
jails,  and  paid  board  for  the  public  prisoners  put  in  these 
private  jails.  There  was  a  time  when  there  was  no  pub- 
lic fire  department;  when  private  corporations  or  asso- 
ciations looked  after  the  questions  of  putting  out  fires  in 
the  city.  Gradually  we  found  out  that  some  things  had 
to  be  done  by  the  public,  and  for  the  benefit  of  the  entire 
public,  and  so,  out  of  about  thirteen  public  utilities,  we 
took  over  seven,  and  left  the  other  five  for  private  cor- 
porations. W^hich  seven  did  we  take  over?  The  fire  de- 
partment and  the  police  department  were  taken  over  by 
us.  In  America  we  have  had  public  schools  from  the 
beginning.     England   only   got  public   schools   in    1876. 

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Addresses  World's  Social  Progress  Congress 

We  have  taken  over  the  paving  and  cleaning  of  the 
streets;  individuals  used  to  keep  the  streets  clean.  I 
can  recall  when  the  sprinkling  of  the  streets  here  was 
done  by  individuals  paid  by  the  individual  store  keepers ; 
and  one  would  pay  and  one  wouldn't,  and  the  sprinkler 
would  sprinkle  in  front  of  the  store  that  had  paid  and 
not  in  front  of  the  one  that  hadn't,  and  the  dust  from 
in  front  of  the  store  that  hadn't  paid  would  blow  in  the 
door  of  the  one  that  had. 

So  we  took  over  all  these  departments ;  but  we  only 
took  over  the  ones  that  we  couldn't  possibly  expect  to 
make  any  profit  out  of,  and  all  those  that  there  might  be 
a  profit  in,  we  left  to  the  private  corporation  to  conduct. 
How  did  that  come  about  ?  Why,  the  private  corporations 
were  anxious  to  have  us  take  over  the  profitless  ones ;  no- 
body opposed  it.  We  took  over  the  schools,  and  some  of 
the  private  schools  did  oppose  it,  but  the  opposition  didn't 
amount  to  much,  and  private  corporations  were  glad  to 
let  us  have  the  fire  department  and  the  police  department. 
But  then  when  some  of  us  wanted  to  take  over  the  street 
cars  and  run  them,  they  said,  ''Hold  on ;  you  can't  do 
that."  They  tell  us  that  politicians  can't  run  street  cars ; 
the  people  can't  do  that.  They  can  run  a  fire  department 
because  that  doesn't  amount  to  anything  and  isn't  im- 
portant ;  what  does  it  matter  if  a  city  like  San  Francisco 
does  burn  up  two  or  three  hundred  million  dollars  worth 
of  property?  But  the  people  can't  be  trusted  to  run  the 
street  cars;  they  should  confine  themselves  to  the  fire 
and  police  departments,  where  there  is  no  profit. 

Why  shouldn't  we  run  a  publicly-owned  telephone? 
We  all  know  that  a  telephone  ought  to  be  a  monopoly; 
there  shouldn't  be  two  different  telephone  systems.  We 
didn't  know  it  until  we  tried,  but  after  we  tried  it  we  knew 
it;  we  found  that  with  two  in  operation,  we  had  to  have 

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Public  Utilities  and  Social  Progress 

both  of  them,  and  so  had  to  pay  double.  Why  not  run  a 
pubHc  telephone  system  ?  Why,  they  tell  us,  that  is  a  busi- 
ness the  public  can't  run.  It  can  run  the  school  depart- 
ment; of  course,  it  doesn't  require  any  brains  to  run  a 
school  department  and  teach  the  children,  but  it  takes 
brains  to  run  a  telephone  business  and  put  the  wires  up. 
There  is  no  profit  in  running  schools ;  they  are  free.  If 
there  were  a  profit,  they  would  tell  us  it  was  impossible 
for  us  to  run  the  schools ;  that  politics  would  get  into  them 
and  they  would  be  no  good.  But  if  we  were  going  to  run 
a  free  telephone  system,  they  wouldn't  agree  to  it,  be- 
cause there  is  too  much  money  in  the  one  they  are  run- 
ning, and  they  don't  want  to  let  go.  And  so,  when  any 
city  in  the  United  States  has  attempted  to  take  over  one 
of  the  profit-making  utilities,  the  people  have  been  told 
by  most  of  the  newspapers  in  that  particular  city  that  it 
was  all  nonsense  and  dangerous;  that  the  corrupt  poli- 
ticians would  steal  everything.  We,  here  in  San  Fran- 
cisco, listened  and  beHeved  all  that;  but  finally  we  tried 
one  lonesome  street-car  line  on  Geary  Street,  and  after 
the  public  got  it  running  it  made  so  much  profit  that  we 
were  almost  afraid  to  tell  ourselves  what  we  were  making. 
The  public  operation  of  it  has  been  opposed  by  the  public 
utility  owners  for  years.  Every  time  there  was  a  fight 
made  to  put  it  through,  nine-tenths  of  the  bankers  in  this 
city  fought  it  and  furnished  money  to  the  political  funds 
to  fight  it.  Nine-tenths  of  the  members  of  the  Chamber 
of  Commerce  and  Board  of  Trade  fought  it.  Why? 
Merely  because  they  had  wrong  ideas  of  political  econ- 
omy. What  gave  them  the  wrong  ideas  ?  The  ownership 
of  stock  and  bonds  in  public  utilities.  Cutting  coupons 
gave  them  the  wrong  ideas,  and  borrowing  money  from 
the  bankers  who  owned  the  bonds,  and  having  those  bank- 
ers whisper  in  their  ears  that  it  would  kill  San  Francisco. 

209 


Addresses  World's  Social  Progress  Congress 

What  has  the  United  Railways  been  doing  for  years? 
Refusing  to  extend  its  Hnes  unless  they  were  promised  a 
franchise  for  fifty  years  so  that  they  might  fasten  their 
tentacles  upon  the  public.  And  did  the  bankers  protest 
that  this  privately  owned  and  atrociously  managed  public 
utility  was  injuring  San  Francisco?  Not  a  word;  on  the 
contrary  they  said  that  the  muckraker  who  accused  these 
men  of  graft  and  corruption  ought  to  be  run  out  of  the 
city. 

Why,  don't  you  see  what  private  ownership  of  public 
utilities  does  ?  It  poisons  the  minds  of  some  of  the  men 
who  would  otherwise  be  the  most  useful  men  in  the  com- 
munity. Let  me  show  you  how.  The  cities  of  Europe 
have  taken  over  the  public  utilities,  most  of  them.  Like 
us,  they  started  with  private  ownership ;  but  over  twenty- 
five  years  ago  they  discovered  their  error,  and  ever  since 
they  have  been  taking  over  the  public  utilities.  Practi- 
cally every  large  city  in  Europe  owns  its  own  street  cars. 

Well,  we  have  started  to  do  it  by  getting  hold  of  some 
of  the  street-car  lines  in  San  Francisco.  We  started  with 
the  Geary  Street  line,  and  then  tried  to  extend  it.  When 
we  were  fighting  for  new  bonds  to  extend  these  lines,  the 
San  Francisco  Chronicle  made  a  bitter  opposition  fight; 
it  was  getting  paid  for  doing  it. 

What  was  the  objection  to  it?  The  Chronicle  said, 
"What  would  have  happened  if  we  had  had  public  own- 
ership of  the  street  cars,  the  gas,  and  the  telephone  when 
Schmitz  was  mayor  of  San  Francisco  and  Ruef  was  po- 
litical boss?"  I  think  if  anybody  can  answer  that  ques- 
tion, I  am  the  man,  because  I  spent  two  years  with  a 
grand  jury  on  that  subject.  The  best  way  to  find  out 
what  would  happen  is  to  inquire  what  did  happen.  What 
did  happen?  Seventeen  out  of  the  eighteen  supervisors 
making  up  the  Board  of  Supervisors,  or  City  Council, 

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Public  Utilities  and  Social  Progress 

made  confessions ;  came  before  the  grand  jury  and  con- 
fessed to  all  the  crimes  they  had  committed.  What  had 
they  done?  Accepted  bribes.  What  bribes  had  they 
accepted  ?  Well,  they  had  accepted  a  bribe  from  the  gas 
company.  What  for?  They  had  been  elected  on  a  plat- 
form pledging  them  to  make  the  gas  rate  seventy-five 
cents;  they  were  paid  seven  hundred  and  fifty  dollars 
apiece  to  make  the  gas  rate  eighty-five  cents.  The  polit- 
ical boss,  Ruef,  got  twenty  thousand  dollars,  and  gave 
half  of  it  to  Schmitz,  the  mayor,  and  the  other  half  was 
divided  up  among  the  supervisors;  seven  hundred  and 
fifty  dollars  apiece  among  eighteen  of  them.  That  was 
for  making  the  gas  rate  eighty-five  cents.  What  would 
have  happened  if  we  had  had  pubHc  ownership?  Would 
the  pubHc  have  bribed  the  supervisors  to  raise  the  price? 
Why,  it  is  ridiculous.  Why  were  they  bribed  to  make  it 
eighty-five  cents?  That  ten  cents  extra  per  thousand 
feet  of  gas  made  an  increase  to  the  gas  company  of  about 
three  hundred  thousand  dollars  a  year  in  income.  I  have 
heard  it  said  this  political  boss  was  a  friend  to  the  poor; 
that  he  only  robbed  the  rich  corporations.  The  gas  com- 
pany gave  him  twenty  thousand  dollars  for  doing  what? 
For  making  the  price  of  gas  eighty-five  cents,  which  gave 
the  gas  company  three  hundred  thousand  dollars.  Wliere 
did  that  three  hundred  thousand  dollars  come  from? 
Most  of  it  came  from  the  poor,  because  the  rich  don't  use 
gas  very  much ;  they  use  electricity.  But  in  the  modern 
cities,  the  poor  use  gas  for  cooking,  heating  and  lighting ; 
they  are  the  ones  who  use  most  of  the  gas,  and  they  paid 
that  extra  ten  cents,  which  amounted  to  three  hundred 
thousand  dollars ;  to  go  into  the  pockets  of  whom  ?  Some 
of  our  biggest  bankers.  You  may  get  the  impression  after 
a  while  that  I  am  down  on  bankers,  but  I  am  not.  Far 
from  it.    I  would  like  to  be  in  a  position  to  borrow  from 

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Addresses  World's  Social  Progress  Congress 

every  bank  in  the  United  States.  The  bankers  perform  a 
very  useful  service  in  a  community;  but  I  am  down  on 
leaving  this  temptation  where  some  of  our  best  men,  who 
are  bankers,  are  put  in  such  a  position.  I  don't  want  to 
save  their  pockets ;  I  want  to  save  their  souls. 

You  can  approach  this  from  either  the  economic  or  the 
moral  standpoint,  and  the  argument  is  just  as  strong  from 
one  side  as  the  other.  What  happened  when  men  were 
prosecuted  for  accepting  these  bribes  ?  Some  of  our  big- 
gest bankers  and  merchants  in  the  strongest  social  clubs 
of  this  city,  and  I  was  a  member  of  every  one  of  them, 
made  the  defense  openly,  "Well,  of  course  they  did  it,  but 
they  had  to  do  it."  Had  to  do  what?  Had  to  commit  a 
felony,  had  to  undermine  the  foundations  of  government 
by  bribing  public  servants,  one  of  the  worst  crimes  that 
can  be  committed;  and  they  did  it  "to  protect  their  in- 
vestments." Why,  four  hundred  and  fifty  years  before 
Christ,  a  better  Christian  doctrine  than  that  was  taught 
by  Socrates;  after  he  had  been  condemned  to  death  he 
refused  to  flee  because  he  would  be  breaking  the  laws  of 
his  country  and  he  had  been  preaching  all  his  life  that  it 
is  the  duty  of  the  citizen  to  obey  the  laws,  and  so  he  re- 
mained and  accepted  death.  And  yet  private  ownership 
of  public  utilities  has  brought  men  to  a  pass  in  this  coun- 
try where  our  most  influential  citizens  openly  defend  in 
their  social  clubs  the  committing  of  these  crimes  on  the 
ground  that  "a  man  has  to  protect  his  investments."  Three 
hundred  thousand  dollars  additional  income  is  five  per  cent 
on  six  milHon  dollars,  isn't  it?  Where  were  the  six  mil- 
lion dollars  of  bonds  whose  fictitious  value  would  be  wiped 
out  over  night  by  a  reduction  of  the  gas  rate  to  seventy- 
five  cents?  They  were  lying  quietly  in  the  banks;  and 
the  bankers  were  merely  saying  that  the  public  should 
continue  to  pay  eighty-five  cents  because  they  were  loan- 

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Public  Utilities  and  Social  Progress 

ing  money  to  the  owners  of  these  bonds,  and  those  bonds 
wouldn't  be  worth  so  much  as  security  if  the  price  of  gas 
was  lowered. 

It  was  the  same  with  the  telephone  and  the  street  rail- 
ways. What  else  did  the  supervisors  confess  ?  They  had 
been  bribed  by  the  Home  Telephone  Company  that  wanted 
a  franchise;  they  got  one  hundred  and  twenty  thousand 
dollars  from  the  Home  Telephone  Company  to  grant  it 
a  franchise  so  that  it  could  come  in  and  compete  with  the 
Pacific  States  Telephone  Company.  They  got  thirty-five 
hundred  dollars  apiece.  Now,  the  Pacific  States  Tele- 
phone Company  didn't  want  that  franchise  given ;  it  had 
to  "protect  its  investment."  It  was  already  in,  and  its 
officers  thought  they  had  a  right  to  protect  themselves 
against  competition.  So  they  sent  their  man  down  to 
give  a  personal  bribe  to  the  individual  supervisors,  and 
he  paid- them  five  thousand  dollars  apiece  to  vote  against 
the  Home  franchise.  Thus,  they  got  five  thousand  dol- 
lars in  the  left  hand,  and  thirty-five  hundred  dollars  in 
the  right  hand,  and  then  they  went  the  way  Abe  Ruef  told 
them  to  go;  and  now  the  Home  Telephone  has  sold  out 
to  the  Pacific  States  Telephone  Company  and  the  latter 
wants  to  consolidate  the  two  systems.  The  Chronicle  says, 
"What  would  have  happened  if  we  had  had  public  owner- 
ship at  that  time?"  Would  the  public  have  bribed  the 
supervisors  to  grant  the  franchise,  and  also  not  to  grant 
the  franchise?    Why,  nothing  would  have  happened. 

The  supervisors  also  accepted  a  bribe  of  two  hundred 
thousand  dollars  from  the  street  railway  company;  Ruef 
divided  one  hundred  thousand  dollars  thereof  with 
Schmitz,  the  mayor,  and  divided  up  the  rest  among  the 
supervisors.  What  would  have  happened  if  the  city  had 
owned  its  own  street  railways?  Would  the  public  have 
bribed  the  supervisors  to  change  from  the  underground 

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Addresses  World's  Social  Progress  Congress 

cable  to  the  overhead  trolley  ?  Why,  of  course  not.  You 
see,  under  public  ownership  there  would  have  been  no 
bribery.  I  don't  believe  that  Schmitz  would  have  been 
elected  if  we  had  had  public  ownership.  If  we  had  public 
ownership  and  our  bankers  and  merchants  showed  the  in- 
terest that  they  do  in  the  honest  conduct  of  some  parts 
of  the  city  government,  I  think  that  the  public  would  get 
so  that  it  would  have  some  confidence  in  the  recommenda- 
tions of  the  bankers  and  merchants  and  the  Chamber  of 
Commerce  on  the  subject  of  politics.  But  just  as  long  as 
present  conditions  exist  the  public  will  rightfully  suspect 
them  every  time  they  recommend  anything.  But  don't 
you  see  what  would  happen  if  the  public  owned  the  public 
utilities  that  profit  is  made  from?  In  order  to  have  a 
thriving,  progressive  town,  you  would  have  to  have  effi- 
cient service  from  the  street  cars  and  gas  and  electricity, 
and  from  the  water  system  and  telephone  system.  With 
what  result?  With  the  result  that  every  banker  who  is 
interested  in  seeing  the  town  prosper  would  be  in  favor 
of  good  government  and  efficiency.  He  wants  good  gov- 
ernment now,  but  he  wants  that  kind  of  good  government 
which  will  allow  the  street  cars  to  make  all  the  money 
they  can,  and  the  other  utilities  all  they  can;  and  if  you 
don't  permit  that,  he  would  rather  have  bad  government, 
and  will  make  alliance  with  the  tenderloin  in  order  to 
beat  you  at  the  polls  and  elect  men  who  will  give  them 
what  they  want.  That  happens  over  and  over  again  in 
every  big  city  in  the  United  States,  and  once  in  a  while 
the  people  dimly  see  what  the  trouble  is,  and  some  re- 
former stirs  them  up  and  they  elect  a  reform  ticket,  and 
the  new  government  isn't  in  power  a  month  before  the 
newspapers  commence  to  ridicule  it  and  criticize,  because, 
back  of  the  newspapers,  the  public  utility  corporations  are 
busy.     They  work  through  the  biggest  advertisers;  and 

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Public  Utilities  and  Social  Progress 

so  the  public  mind  is  confused  in  regard  to  the  reform 
administration  and  by  the  time  it  has  been  in  two  years, 
and  has  been  misrepresented  every  day  for  two  years, 
you  sweep  the  reformer  out  of  office  and  put  back  the  old 
machine,  and  you  think  you  have  done  your  duty  as  cit- 
izens; and  you  have  acted  conscientiously,  but,  my!  how 
stupidly. 

But  let  all  the  utilities  be  owned  by  the  public  and  then 
your  banker  will  want  to  have  them  honestly  and  effici- 
ently conducted,  and  he  will  help  you.  Will  there  be 
stealing?  Why,  if  a  public  officer  steals,  what  happens 
to  him?  If  a  treasurer  steals  money,  he  is  sent  to  the 
penitentiary;  or  a  tax  collector  who  steals  is  punished; 
there  is  no  public  excitement  about  him.  It  is  only  when 
you  get  after  somebody  who  has  been  doing  business  for 
the  public  utility  corporation  that  there  is  any  excitement. 
Let  a  man  steal  public  funds,  and  see  how  every  banker 
and  merchant  will  want  to  send  him  to  the  penitentiary. 
They  all  joined  in  wanting  to  send  Abe  Ruef  to  the  pen- 
itentiary ;  every  newspaper  and  banker  in  town  seemed 
to  be  in  favor  of  it  up  to  the  time  that  he  made  confessions 
in  open  court;  and  the  very  next  morning  thereafter  the 
Chronicle  w^ent  over  on  the  other  side  and  commenced 
to  oppose  the  prosecution.  Why?  Because  some  of  the 
gentlemen  who  furnished  the  bribe  money  would  be  in- 
dicted, and  big  business  wouldn't  tolerate  the  punishment 
of  the  men  who  did  the  bribing;  and  they  didn't  tolerate 
it,  and  the  prosecution  wasn't  successful.  Finally  they 
got  enough  newspapers  on  their  side  so  that  they  were 
able  to  confuse  the  public  mind,  and  then  a  district  attor- 
ney was  elected  who  had  privately  arranged  to  dismiss 
all  the  indictments  and  stop  the  prosecution.  There  is 
only  one  way  to  stop  corruption  of  this  character  in  our 

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Addresses  World's  Social  Progress  Congress 

large  cities,  and  that  is  by  the  pubHc  ownership  of  all  its 
public  utilities. 

And  so  we  are  trying  to  get  public  ownership,  because 
then  these  men  who  are  doing  these  things  will  join  with 
us  to  get  efficiency,  and  it  is  demonstrable  that  everything 
in  government  that  they  demand  shall  be  efficiently  con- 
ducted, is  efficiently  conducted.  Everywhere,  even  under 
corrupt  conditions,  the  fire  departments  are  efficient.  New 
York  City  is  world  famous  for  the  efficiency  of  its  fire 
department.  Had  not  the  big  pipe  that  brings  water  into 
San  Francisco  been  broken,  San  Francisco  would  have 
been  saved  in  1906  by  the  efficiency  of  its  fire  department. 
Why  was  it  so  efficient  when  we  had  such  corrupt  gov- 
ernment? Don't  you  see  that  the  people  who  dealt  with 
Ruef,  and  joined  hands  with  the  tenderloin,  and  permitted 
it  to  be  run  wide  open  in  violation  of  the  ordinances,  and 
bribed  the  supervisors,  these  men  demanded  efficient  fire 
protection  even  from  Ruef,  because  they  owned  the  big 
buildings;  they  owned  the  fire  insurance  companies,  and 
they  paid  the  losses,  and  so  they  insisted  upon  efficiency 
in  this  one  particular  thing.  How  about  the  police  de- 
partment? Do  they  want  honest  policemen  every\Mhere? 
No.  They  don't  care  about  bunco  steerers  or  gambhng; 
but  they  want  business  houses  protected  against  burglary ; 
they  want  the  traffic  on  the  streets  conducted  efficiently 
because  it  interferes  with  business  if  it  isn't  efficiently 
done.  Do  they  get  it  ?  Why,  of  course  they  get  it.  Un- 
der Tammany,  in  New  York,  they  have  as  fine  a  service 
on  Fifth  Avenue  as  anywhere  on  earth,  in  the  way  the 
traffic  is  taken  care  of,  and  the  same  police  divide  up  with 
the  pickpockets  who  rob  on  Fifth  Avenue  Between  mid- 
night and  morning.  The  power  back  of  Tammany  is  the 
Wall  Street  bankers;  and  in  every  city  in  the  United 
States,  back  of  the  so-called  political  machine  you  will 

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Public  Utilities  and  Social  Progress 

find  the  men  who  are  making  money  out  of  the  public 
utilities. 

So  I  say,  from  an  economic  standpoint,  and  from  the 
moral  standpoint,  both,  you  must  have  public  ownership 
of  utilities.  Wouldn't  you  rather  lose  money  on  your 
street  cars  and  your  telephones  and  your  water  system 
and  your  electric  lighting,  than  to  have  your  boys  and 
girls  brought  up  to  believe  that  it  is  morally  right  to  "pro- 
tect an  investment"  by  bribing  public  servants  ? 

You  cannot  break  down  the  moral  standards  of  young 
men  and  women  in  one  direction  without  weakening  the 
entire  structure  in  every  direction. 

I  have  gone  over  my  hour.  If  I  have  started  you  think- 
ing, I  have  done  all  that  I  came  here  for  to-night.  Go 
home  and  think  it  all  over,  and  when  you  think  you  have 
found  some  answers  to  my  arguments,  drop  me  a  line 
and  ask  me  for  it,  and  I  will  tell  you  what  the  answer  is. 
Because  there  is  an  answer.  The  thing  is  so  plain  to  me 
now  that  I  only  wonder  why  I  didn't  always  see  it. 


217 


Chapter  XVI. 
OUR  CITIES  AND  SOCIAL  PROGRESS. 

BY   DANA   W.    BARTLETT. 

The  city  has  come  to  stay.  Nearly  fifty  per  cent  of 
all  the  people  are  living  now  in  metropolitan  areas.  Try 
as  hard  as  we  may  to  encourage  the  back-to-the-land 
movement,  we  have  very  little  hope  of  changing  the  drift 
city-ward.  So  the  main  thing  to  do  is  to  make  the  city 
the  very  best  place  possible,  to  make  every  city  a  "city 
livable." 

I  am  thinking  to-night  of  the  power  of  environment 
upon  the  life  of  those  who  live  within  the  city.  I  am 
thinking  more  and  more  of  the  environment  in  its  relation 
to  character  building,  and  health,  and  morals.  I  used  to 
talk  more  about  heredity;  but  as  I  have  seen,  through 
years  of  service  in  the  city,  the  power  of  physical  condi- 
tions as  they  bear  upon  the  lives  of  others,  I  feel  like  do- 
ing all  in  my  power  to  change  those  conditions  for  good. 

I  have  watched  the  effect  of  the  surroundings  upon 
the  lives  of  so  many ;  I  have  seen  them  go  down  so  rap- 
idly, and  it  seems  to  me  that  if  there  is  any  way  out  of 
such  conditions,  we  must  find  it.  We  cannot  afford  to 
spoil  our  cities  as  we  are  doing;  we  must  destroy  the 
slum.  Let  me  give  you  just  a  little  illustration,  which  I 
ran  across  in  London.  You  have  read  of  the  garden  cities 
of  England,  that  wonderful  movement  spreading  from 
England  over  the  continent.  I  have  visited  many  of  them. 
The  plan  is  to  buy  a  large  tract  of  land  and  move  out  the 
factories  from  the  city,  and  move  the  people  out,  and  give 
them  the  finest  kind  of  homes  and  surroundings ;  the  finest 

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Our  Cities  and  Social  Progress 

surroundings  that  anybody  could  wish  for.  Two-thirds 
of  the  land  is  kept  as  agricultural  land,  never  to  be  built 
upon,  and  they  allow  only  ten  houses  to  the  acre,  so  that 
it  can  never  become  overcrowded.  The  movement  is  a 
wonderfully  interesting  and  suggestive  one,  and  we  hope 
that  it  will  spread  here. 

They  took  an  examination  of  boys  of  fourteen  years  of 
age  in  the  slum  schools  of  Liverpool,  and  in  the  garden 
village  of  Port  Sunlight,  where  Sunlight  soap  is  manu- 
factured, and  where  the  surroundings  are  splendid ;  good 
air  and  good  food.  They  found  that  the  boys  in  the  gar- 
den city  were  six  inches  taller  and  weighed  thirty  pounds 
more  on  the  average  than  the  boys  in  the  slum  schools  of 
Liverpool. 

You  remember  during  the  Boer  War,  the  recruiting  of- 
ficers went  down  into  the  slums  of  London  and  Liverpool, 
but  they  found  that  they  could  get  very  few  recruits ;  they 
all  fell  under  the  requirements.  And  England  to-day,  in 
order  to  get  soldiers,  is  having  to  take  men  under  the 
standard  height  because  the  slum  has  degenerated  the 
stock.  You  know  why.  When  we  see  the  drunken  women 
with  their  sickly  children  in  their  arms,  and  the  fearful 
conditions,  and  realize  that  the  fathers  and  grandfathers  of 
these  children  have  lived  there,  never  knowing  where  the 
next  meal  was  to  come  from,  it  is  evident  enough  why 
they  deteriorate. 

The  London  County  Council  has  done  a  wonderful 
work.  It  started  to  buy  up  the  slum  area.  They  tore 
down  the  old  tenements  and  built  beautiful  apartment 
houses,  and  cleared  large,  open  spaces  with  flowers;  but 
they  soon  discovered  that  they  were  not  accomplishing 
anything,  because  the  people  that  had  previously  lived 
there  moved  into  some  other  place  and  formed  a  new 
slum,  and  the  better  class  of  people  moved  into  these 

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Addresses  World's  Social  Progress  Congress 

dwellings  that  were  so  nice.  So  then  they  went  out  into 
the  country  and  bought  up  large  estates,  and  built  homes 
for  the  people.  Then,  before  they  tore  down  the  slum 
buildings,  they  said,  "Here  we  have  a  beautiful  place  in 
the  country,  where  we  will  give  you  cheap  car  fares." 
And  in  this  way  they  got  the  people  out  there  and  they 
are  getting  rid  of  the  slums,  in  the  great  city  of  London. 

Why  should  we  allow  people  to  live  in  the  fearful  con- 
ditions that  they  do  in  this  city  and  in  Los  Angeles,  and 
in  all  the  cities  of  this  State.  We  pay  no  attention  to  it. 
Yet  these  people  are  being  degraded  by  their  surround- 
ings, when  it  is  for  the  city  itself  to  see  that  they  are  prop- 
erly housed.  They  have  learned  the  lesson  across  the  wa- 
ter, and  in  other  places  municipalities  are  attempting  to 
remedy  conditions.  Buenos  Aires  is  devoting  ten  million 
dollars  to  house  its  people.  Ontario  is  making  it  possible 
for  philanthropic  companies  to  issue  stock,  and  the  city 
itself  will  guarantee  three-fourths  of  the  stock.  One  of 
these  companies  in  Toronto  has  issued  two  hundred  and 
fifty  thousand  dollars  and  the  city  has  guaranteed  seven 
hundred  and  fifty  thousand  dollars,  which  they  are  now 
using  to  rehabilitate  the  poorer  sections  of  that  city. 

We  cannot  afford  to  have  our  people  live  in  the  terrible 
conditions  that  they  are  living  in  now;  considering  the 
value  as  laborers,  and  as  fathers  and  mothers  and  cit- 
izens, it  will  pay  the  city  to  put  money  into  such  an  enter- 
prise. 

We  have  just  had  a  prize  contest  for  plans  for  working- 
men's  houses.  There  will  be  seven  who  will  win  in  this 
prize  contest.  We  are  hoping  to  find  twenty-five  thou- 
sand dollars  at  six  per  cent  with  which  we  can  buy  the 
first  unit  and  construct  these  model  houses  for  the  work- 
ing people.  We  believe  that  we  can  build  a  house  of 
four  rooms  and  bath,  on  one-tenth  of  an  acre,  and  sell  it 

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Our  Cities  and  Social  Progress 

to  the  working  man  for  one  thousand  dollars  at  ten  dol- 
lars a  month,  and  that  will  make  it  possible  for  a  two-dol- 
lar-a-day  man  to  get  a  house  for  himself.  We  believe  in 
making  a  city  of  homes,  not  of  apartment  houses  or  tene- 
ments. We  are  going  to  have  all  about  us  in  every  city 
better  conditions.  The  great  factories  can  no  longer  af- 
ford to  buy  land  in  the  richest  districts.  The  Iron  Works 
in  Los  Angeles  wanted  two  acres  more  land,  and  they 
found  that  this  two  acres  would  cost  so  much  that  they 
could  better  afford  to  go  out  to  the  garden  city  of  Tor- 
rance and  buy  twenty-five  acres,  and  that  is  what  they 
have  done.  So  the  factory  will  move  out  of  the  city. 
They  can  build  model  factories  and  model  homes  for 
the  people  outside  of  the  city,  and  when  that  town  of 
Torrance  was  built,  there  was  a  clause  put  in  the  charter 
that  no  liquor  can  ever  be  sold  in  that  territory.  But  they 
are  planning  to  build  a  library  and  a  schoolhouse  and  a 
hospital,  and  in  the  years  to  come  the  thousands  who  work 
in  these  factories  will  live  in  model  homes  and  will  have 
model  surroundings,  and  will  have  a  chance  to  become 
model  men  and  women,  morally  and  physically. 

I  think  that  we  can  do  nothing  more  important  in  this 
movement  for  social  reform  than  to  give  attention  to  the 
housing  of  the  people,  and  especially  of  the  immigrants 
who  may  come  to  us  in  the  next  few  years. 


221 


Chapter  XVII. 

IS  CONFLICT  THE  PRICE  OF  SOCIAL 
PROGRESS? 

BY  GUY  V.  TALBOT. 

I  shall  Speak  to  you,  not  with  regard  to  a  practical,  spe- 
cific, social  problem,  but  rather  with  reference  to  the 
underlying  thought  which  makes  necessary  the  dealing 
with  specific  social  problems.  It  is  a  fact  that  every 
epoch  of  human  civilization,  through  advance  in  social 
progress,  is  due  to  the  thinking  of  the  people.  The  epochs 
of  civilization  are  thought-created  epochs,  and  I  want  to 
discuss  with  you,  for  a  few  minutes,  this  question  that 
underlies  much  of  our  social  activity ;  Is  conflict  the  price 
of  social  progress  ? 

Haeckel,  the  last  great  exponent  of  the  material  theory 
of  evolution,  made  this  statement  in  one  of  his  last  books. 
His  meaning  is  this;  that  the  epochs  of  civilization,  of 
social  progress,  are  a  recapitulation  or  a  going  over  again 
of  the  history  of  the  human  embryo  from  the  cell  to  a 
complete  living  organism. 

Two  years  ago  I  used  to  preface  all  my  addresses  with 
this  announcement:  I  am  the  father  of  a  pair  of  twins. 
I  am  still  the  father  of  these  twins,  but  the  newness  has 
somewhat  worn  off.  But  I  have  noted  this,  that  these 
twins  and  their  two  brothers,  did  not  arrive  at  self-con- 
sciousness at  once;  they  were  not  born  self-conscious.  By 
a  process  of  experience,  sometimes  hard  and  bitter,  they 
arrived  at  self-consciousness.  And  the  human  race, 
whether  or  not  it  organically  reproduces  the  changes  Qi 
the  human  embryo,  does  scientifically  reproduce  the  his- 

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Conflict  and  Social  Progress 

tory  of  a  human  being  in  arriving  at  self-consciousness. 
We  are  not  yet  socially  self-conscious.  Some  of  us 
thought  the  race  had  almost  arrived  at  racial  conscious- 
ness, at  a  consciousness  of  human  solidarity,  when  the 
whole  world  was  plunged  in  gloom  by  the  announcement 
that  the  nations  of  Europe  were  at  war,  and  then  our 
theory  was  shot  to  pieces.  Men  were  no  longer  brothers, 
but  demons  being  hurled  at  one  another  by  higher  au- 
thority. But  in  spite  of  the  fact,  it  remains  true  that 
society  to-day  as  never  before  is  coming  to  social  self- 
consciousness,  more  than  at  any  preceding  time  in  the 
world's  history;  we  are  conscious  of  brotherhood,  and 
it  has  been  a  long,  bitter,  hard  struggle  through  which 
the  race  has  had  to  come,  even  to  arrive  at  the  first  pale 
glimmerings  of  brotherhood. 

In  the  field  of  biology,  the  study  of  human  origins  or 
of  any  other  physical  origins,  there  is  a  conflict  in  the 
study  of  microscopic  life ;  there  is  constant  conflict.  Let 
me  illustrate  it.  We  have  the  germ  theory  of  disease, 
that  is,  not  a  theory  but  a  demonstrated  fact.  Many  dis- 
eases are  carried  by  means  of  bacteria.  The  function  of 
the  leuccocytes,  the  white  blood  corpuscles,  is  to  destroy 
the  bacteria  that  find  access  to  the  blood  through  the  air 
passages  or  through  some  cut  or  otherwise.  They  are 
called  the  scavengers  of  the  blood,  and  their  function  is  to 
make  war  upon  the  foreign  forms  of  life  that  enter  the 
human  body,  the  disease-producing  germs.  And  we  have 
strong  bodies,  able  to  withstand  the  attacks  of  these  ene- 
mies just  in  so  far  as  we  have  a  strong  army  of  white 
blood  corpuscles  in  our  blood.  Our  power  of  withstand- 
ing disease  depends  on  the  army  of  leuccocytes  in  our 
blood.  Therefore,  our  physical  health  is  dependent  on  a 
conflict  constantly  waged  in  the  blood.  That  means,  cer- 
tainly, that  physical  progress  of  the  human  organism  is 

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Addresses  World's  Social  Progress  Congress 

dependent  somewhat  on  that  conflict  waged  in  the  blood 
by  the  natural  scavengers  of  the  blood  against  the  enemies 
of  human  health. 

It  is  also  a  fact  that  in  the  study  of  animal  life  on  this 
planet,  we  find  a  constant  conflict  in  the  animal  world, 
the  weaker  being  destroyed  by  the  stronger.  We  call  that 
the  survival  of  the  fittest.  In  spite  of  the  fact,  however, 
that  the  stronger  rises  on  the  back  of  the  weaker,  there 
are  to-day  living  armies  of  insects,  for  example,  that 
have  been  able  to  survive;  living  armies  of  little  animals 
that  have  been  able  to  survive,  because  of  their  power  of 
adaptation.  But  there  is  conflict  in  the  physical  world 
about  us.  It  is  true  that  there  have  been  conflicts  between 
individuals  in  the  human  race  ever  since  Cain  killed  his 
brother,  and  conflicts  between  tribes,  ever  since  the  herds- 
men of  Abraham  quarreled  with  the  herdsmen  of  Lot; 
and  there  have  been  conflicts  between  races,  ever  since 
Moses  led  his  IsraeHtes  out  of  Egyptian  bondage;  and 
conflicts  between  nations  ever  since  the  wars  between 
Persia  and  Macedonia. 

But  that  doesn't  necessarily  mean  that  the  progress  of 
human  civilization,  the  social  progress  of  the  race,  has 
been  at  the  price  of  conflict,  for  it  is  a  well-known  fact 
that  man,  as  he  develops,  differs  from  the  orders  below 
him,  in  that  he  directs  consciously  his  progress  toward  a 
given  goal,  and  as  men  in  the  social  organism  become 
socially  conscious,  and  direct  that  organism  toward  a 
given  social  goal,  no  longer  then  is  the  price  of  that 
progress  the  conflict  of  the  various  groups  in  the  social 
organism.  Let  us  apply  this  to  the  governments  of  the 
world. 

What  is  the  cause  of  the  colossal  conflict  being  waged 
in  Europe  to-day?  Was  the  throwing  of  the  bomb  that 
killed  the  archduke  the  cause  ?    That  was  merely  the  torch 

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Conflict  and  Social  Progress 

that  set  off  the  conflagration,  not  the  cause.  Was  it  the 
violation  of  Belgium's  neutrality?  That  was  not  the 
cause,  though  that  may  have  caused  England  to  enter  the 
conflict. 

If  you  would  understand  any  epoch  of  human  civiliza- 
tion, you  must  understand  the  dominant  thinking  of  the 
people  of  that  particular  epoch,  and  the  cause  of  the  Euro- 
pean war  is  to  be  found  in  an  idea  that  had  become  an 
obsession  of  the  people  of  Europe.  Let  me  give  you  a 
development  of  that  idea.  The  modern  scientific  revival 
began  a  generation  ago  with  three  men :  Darwin,  Huxley, 
and  Spencer.  They  gave  to  the  world  the  doctrine  of  the 
survival  of  the  fittest  in  the  struggle  for  existence;  the 
doctrine  that  the  physically  fittest  survive  in  a  struggle. 
This  was  taken  up  by  the  German  philosopher,  who  died 
in  a  mad  house,  and  developed  into  a  philosophic  theory 
of  human  development;  the  doctrine  of  the  superhuman. 
This  doctrine  of  the  German  philosophers,  Nietsche  and 
Treitschke,  developed  into  a  theory  of  government;  and 
this  was  one  of  the  great  advances  of  human  thinking, 
when  this  great  scientific  doctrine  was  applied  first  to  in- 
dividual humans  and  then  to  the  race;  when  it  was 
taken  over  by  the  historian  and  developed  into  a  theory 
of  government,  the  theory  that  that  government  is  the 
fittest  to  survive  which  is  the  strongest  physically  and 
that  has  the  strongest  armies.  This  theory  of  government 
by  Treitschke,  was  taken  up  by  Bernhardi,  and  by  him 
developed  into  a  policy  of  German  government,  and  this 
policy  became  an  obsession  with  the  German  people,  and 
not  only  with  them,  for  they  are  not  different  from  their 
brothers,  but  of  all  the  civilized  world,  that  that  nation  is 
the  fittest  to  survive  in  the  struggle  which  is  physically 
the  strongest.  And  as  the  result  of  that  idea,  we  have 
had  the  mad  race  of  rival  armaments,  and  there  will  come 

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Addresses  World's  Social  Progress  Congress 

no  peace,  no  matter  how  many  peace  congresses  we  have, 
and  so  on,  until  this  false  doctrine  of  internationalism  is 
done  away  with,  and  in  its  stead  we  have  the  great  inter- 
national federation,  based  on  the  brotherhood  of  man, 
and  not  on  the  conflict  of  races  and  nations. 

This  obsession  must  give  way  to  a  rational  and  correct 
theory  of  social  progress.  Applied  specifically,  is  it  true 
that  conflict,  and  as  applied  to  nations  conflict  means  war, 
is  it  true  that  it  is  the  price  of  national  progress  ?  Apply  it 
to  France.  France  as  a  nation  has,  perhaps,  passed 
through  more  international  struggles  than  any  other  na- 
tion of  modern  times.  What  is  the  result  ?  Are  the  French 
people  stronger  or  more  advanced  because  of  those  strug- 
gles. Apply  it  commercially.  France  to-day  carries  an 
economic  burden  that  she  can  never  pay.  Her  war  debt, 
before  the  beginning  of  this  present  war,  was  six  billion 
dollars,  and  it  taxed  the  French  people  to  pay  even  the 
interest  on  this  colossal  war  debt. 

Take  it  physically.  The  stature  of  the  Frenchmen  of 
to-day  is  two  inches  less  than  it  was  before  the  Napo- 
leonic wars,  and  if  you  read  contemporary  historians, 
you  will  find  that  even  French  historians  have  spoken  of 
France  as  a  decadent  people,  a  nation  whose  death  rate 
is  greater  than  her  birth  rate.  And  the  reason  for  that, 
it  seems  to  me,  is  because,  in  the  time  of  the  Napoleonic 
wars,  three  millions  and  a  half  of  the  flower  of  France 
were  sacrificed  on  the  field  of  battle,  and  during  the  war 
of  1870-71,  again  the  flower  of  France  was  sacrificed  on 
the  field  of  battle.  Every  race  that  has  passed  through 
this  phase  of  war  has  found  that  its  progress  was  in 
spite  of,  and  not  because  of,  the  physical  conflicts  through 
which  it  had  passed. 

Great  Britain  is  great  because  it  is  a  federation  of 
states.    Germany  is  great  because  of  the  German  feder- 

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Conflict  and  Social  Progress 

ation  of  states.  Modern  Italy  has  developed  because  it 
is  a  united  Italy,  and  the  United  States  because  they  are 
united  States.  The  nations  that  work  together,  that  are 
united,  are  progressing,  and  the  nations  that  are  in  con- 
tinual conflict  are  going  back.  What  is  the  matter  with 
Mexico?  If  conflict  is  the  true  price  of  national  great- 
ness, no  country  on  earth  ought  to  be  greater  than  Mex- 
ico, for  no  nation  in  the  last  few  years  has  passed  through 
so  many  struggles  as  Mexico.  Yet  no  one  speaks  of 
Mexico  as  going  forward.  Conflict  makes  for  regress 
rather  than  progress,  at  the  present  time. 

What  is  true  of  the  nations  of  the  world  is  more 
especially  true  of  the  fictitious  classes  into  which  modern 
society  is  divided.  "We  cry  peace,  peace,  and  there  is  no 
peace"  between  the  nations  to-day.  We  have  been  crying 
peace  at  peace  congresses  for  years,  and  we  have  done 
the  same  thing  with  regard  to  capital  and  labor ;  and  yet 
there  is  not  an  industry  in  this  Republic  that  is  organized 
on  a  basis  of  brotherhood,  but  our  industries  are  organ- 
ized on  a  basis  of  conflict,  and  there  can  be  no  peace  be- 
tween capital  and  labor  until  the  idea  of  conflict  is  super- 
seded by  the  social  idea  of  brotherhood,  and  brotherhood 
means  democracy  and  co-operation.  Is  it  true  that  the 
conflicts  between  labor  and  capital  have  made  for  prog- 
ress? Is  it  true  that  a  strike  makes  for  the  advance, 
either  of  industry  or  business  in  any  given  community? 
Rather  does  not  a  strike  mean  a  breaking  up  of  the  indus- 
trial organization  and  the  industrial  processes  in  the  com- 
munity, and  doesn't  the  constant  conflict  in  the  industrial 
world  to-day  make  for  inefiiciency  and  dissipation  of  en- 
ergy and  the  reduction  of  physical  forces  of  the  units 
involved,  rather  than  make  for  progress  and  advance? 
Business  has  learned  that  of  conflict  within  business — 
competition  is  the  word  there  that  spells  conflict — the  cap- 

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Addresses  World's  Social  Progress  Congress 

italistic  end  of  the  business  world  has  learned  that  con- 
flict is  not  the  price  of  progress,  and  capital  to-day  co- 
operates, combines,  organizes,  because  it  no  longer  be- 
lieves in  competition.  It  believes  in  competition  with  la- 
bor, but  not  with  itself,  and  so  it  organizes  and  com- 
bines. Labor  has  learned  that  competition  is  not  a  suc- 
cessful way  of  selling  labor  in  the  market,  and  so  it  has 
organized,  because  conflict  or  competition  in  the  labor 
market  has  not  made  for  the  advance  of  labor.  So  labor, 
on  its  side,  has  learned  that  conflict  is  not  the  price  of 
progress.  But  the  two  units  have  not  learned  that  co- 
operation is  a  bigger  word  than  either  capital  or  labor. 
They  co-operate  with  themselves,  but  the  two  elements 
are  separated  to-day  and  do  not  co-operate,  because  in- 
dustry is  based  fundamentally  on  the  idea  of  conflict. 
Capital  organizes  to  increase  dividends  to  the  highest 
point,  and  labor  organizes  to  increase  wages  to  the  highest 
point,  and  there  can  be  no  peace  until  industry  is  organ- 
ized on  the  basis  of  brotherhood  and  democracy. 

All  the  sciences  are  working  that  way.  There  are  sev- 
eral movements  in  the  world  to-day  looking  toward  dem- 
ocracy in  industry.  The  movement  had  its  beginning 
when  Martin  Luther  nailed  his  theses  to  the  church  door, 
or  perhaps  I  should  say  rather  when  Jesus  Christ  came 
with  his  doctrine  of  the  divine  fatherhood.  The  spirit 
was  brought  into  politics  when  Cromwell  rode  over  the 
forces  of  royalistic  England,  and  from  that  day  to  this 
the  democratic  idea  has  been  growing,  until  the  despotic 
governments  have  begun  to  feel  its  influence,  and  it  is 
being  felt  in  the  field  of  industry.  If  the  gospel  of  Jesus 
Christ  is  to  be  fully  lived  upon  this  earth,  then  the  people 
of  America,  through  the  federated  churches  of  America, 
must  be  pledged  to  the  idea  of  industrial  democracy. 

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Conflict  and  Social  Progress 

The  trade  union  movement  is  making  for  democracy 
in  industry;  syndicalism,  the  I,  W.  W.,  is  a  movement 
looking  toward  industrial  democracy,  though  it  is  social 
anarchy.  It  teaches  that  the  laborer  produces  all  wealth, 
and  is  therefore  entitled  to  all  wealth.  Socialism  looks 
toward  industrial  democracy,  but  believes  that  the  end  is 
not  to  be  obtained  by  direct  action  but  by  political  action. 
The  syndicaHst  believes  that  property  is  his  to  take,  since 
he  has  produced  it,  and  therefore  it  is  not  stealing  to  take 
it.  The  socialist  would  take  over  the  means  of  production 
and  distribution  in  the  nation  for  all  the  people,  by  polit- 
ical action. 

The  church  also  looks  toward  social  democracy,  and 
the  word  it  uses  to-day  is  social  justice,  and  social  justice 
means  the  application  of  the  principles  of  brotherhood, 
the  principles  of  the  gospel  of  Jesus  Christ  applied  to  the 
whole  of  human  life,  so  that  each  man  shall  have  his  just 
deserts,  and  be  a  brother  to  every  other  man. 

So  whether  we  take  it  in  the  field  of  government  or  in- 
dustry, it  is  not  true  that  physical  conflict  is  the  price  of 
social  progress,  but  rather  that  social  progress  has  been  in 
spite  of,  and  not  because  of,  physical  conflict.  Lester  F. 
Ward  has  a  theory  which  he  calls  intellectual  egalitarian- 
ism.  He  means  that  society  advances  because  of  the 
knowledge  of  its  people,  enabling  them  to  work  consci- 
ously for  a  given  goal,  and  that  the  only  true  social  prog- 
ress is  that  which  comes,  not  from  above,  foisted  upon  the 
masses,  but  which  comes  from  within  the  masses  them- 
selves. He  believes  that  education  and  culture  will  ulti- 
mately permeate  the  whole  of  the  lump  until  society  be- 
comes socially  self-conscious,  and  will  then  consciously 
direct  its  progress  toward  a  given  goal;  and  that  goal, 

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Addresses  World's  Social  Progress  Congress 

my  friends,  is  the  brotherhood  of  man  and  the  kingdom 
of  God  on  earth. 

General  Sherman  said  that  war  is  hell,  and  his  definition 
has  never  been  disputed.  Conflict  is  war,  and  to  say  that 
conflict  is  the  price  of  progress,  is  equivalent  to  saying 
that  hell  is  the  price  of  heaven ;  and  that  we  don't  believe. 


230 


Chapter  XVIII. 

OUR  PUBLIC  SCHOOL  PROPERTIES  AND 
SOCIAL  PROGRESS. 

BY  DANA  W.  BARTLETT. 

These  are  great  days  we  are  living  in ;  greater  than  the 
days  of  the  Renaissance;  greater  than  the  days  of  the 
Reformation.  The  next  ten  years  will  mean  more  than 
any  hundred  years  that  the  world  has  ever  seen.  It  is  a 
mighty  fine  thing  to  live  in  these  days.  I  like  to  stand 
before  a  group  of  students  in  a  high  school  or  college 
and  look  into  their  bright,  earnest  faces,  and  realize  that 
they  have  many  years  to  the  good,  compared  with  what 
was  before  me  when  I  left  school  thirty  odd  years  ago. 
We  were  pioneers  in  those  days.  We  had  to  try  things 
out  for  ourselves,  and  finally,  out  of  it  all,  evolve  some 
definite  line  of  work.  Now  the  young  people  coming  out 
of  school  are  able  to  enter  into  these  great  openings,  the 
new  social  opportunities  which  are  theirs. 

The  last  legislature  passed  a  revolutionary  bill;  I  hope 
that  you  are  all  familiar  with  it.  It  is  called  the  Civic 
Center  Bill,  and  it  made  every  schoolhouse  in  the  State 
of  California  a  civic  center.  It  made  it  mandatory  on 
the  Boards  of  Education  to  grant  the  free  use  of  the 
school  buildings  to  citizens,  no  charge  being  made  for 
light,  heat,  or  janitor  or  supervision,  if  these  things  are 
necessary.  Almost  any  kind  of  activity  can  be  carried 
on  under  that  law.  It  is  true  that  the  word  "religion"  is 
left  out,  and  the  average  county  superintendent  will  prob- 
ably rule  that  sectarian  services  cannot  be  held  in  the 
school.     But  everything  else  that  the  citizens  want  to 

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Addresses  World* s  Social  Progress  Congress 

have  can  be  held  in  the  schoolhouses  of  the  State  of  Cal- 
ifornia. It  seems  to  me  that  most  of  the  people,  or  at 
any  rate  a  great  many  of  them,  cannot  know  this  fact,  or 
there  would  not  be  a  schoolhouse  in  the  State  that  would 
not  be  a  center  of  life  and  interest  in  that  community. 
We  have  lived  so  long  thinking  that  the  school,  with  the 
vast  expenditure  which  it  involved  in  buildings  and  land, 
was  built  simply  for  the  children  to  use  five  days  a  week 
for  a  few  hours  a  day.  In  these  days  of  efficiency,  we  are 
seeing  that  it  is  not  fair  to  the  tax-payers  to  use  such 
buildings  only  a  part  of  the  time.  So  we  are  going  to 
use  our  school  buildings  for  the  good  of  all  the  people. 

A  century  and  a  half  ago,  on  the  Atlantic  coast,  there 
was  discontent  and  unrest,  and  the  common  men  began  to 
meet  and  talk  in  the  town  halls  and  in  the  town  meetings. 
They  were  people  the  world  had  never  heard  of  before ; 
they  did  not  represent  kings.  They  were  simply  the  com- 
mon people,  representing  the  common  mind,  and  as  they 
mixed  together  in  these  town  halls  so  many  years  ago, 
really  the  Revolutionary  War  was  fought  out  there  in 
those  town  meetings,  rather  than  on  the  battle  fields. 

A  century  and  a  half  has  passed,  and  unrest  and  dis- 
content in  a  time  of  plenty  again  exists,  and  men  are  be- 
ginning to  meet  and  talk  again.  We  have  not  to-day  the 
town  halls,  but  we  have  the  schoolhouses ;  and  again  the 
people  will  meet  together  and  elect  their  presiding  officer 
and  form  an  organization  and  discuss  and  talk,  and  again 
we  will  have  a  revolution — not  by  means  of  guns,  as  in 
the  older  days,  but  by  means  of  the  ballot. 

So  I  feel  that  these  are  very  wonderful  days  in  which 
we  live,  days  in  which  we  may  say  that  we  are  glad  we 
are  ahve.  Here  are  the  buildings,  all  built  for  us ;  here 
is  this  opportunity  for  the  expression  of  democracy. 
Democracy  thus  far  is,  after  all,  not  much  more  than  sim- 

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Our  Public  School  Properties  and  Social  Progress 

plified  autocracy.  Until  all  the  people  have  a  part  in  it, 
you  cannot  call  it  democracy.  But  in  this  State  we  have 
an  opportunity  to  write  our  own  laws ;  the  simplest  peo- 
ple in  the  State  of  California  can  begin  to  agitate  for 
any  law  or  ordinance  they  may  desire.  They  may  work 
out  their  ideas  through  the  initiative,  or  demand  a  refer- 
endum, and  the  people  can  decide  what  the  law  shall  be. 
And  remember,  it  is  not  safe  to  have  such  power  without 
proper  education,  and  that  must  come  through  the  use 
of  the  public  school  buildings. 

If,  a  year  ago,  there  had  been  a  large  opportunity  for 
the  expression  of  democracy  in  Europe,  think  you  that 
the  smoke  of  battle  would  to-day  be  hiding  the  sun?  If 
the  internationalists  had  been  given  a  month  or  two 
months  to  meet  and  consider  and  talk,  do  you  think  there 
would  have  been  any  war  in  Europe  to-day?  If,  instead 
of  a  few  men  at  the  top  declaring  war,  it  had  been  left  to 
the  people  to  talk  it  out  in  the  schoolhouses,  a  way  of  set- 
tlement would  have  been  found  and  there  would  have 
been  no  war. 

So  in  our  own  economic  problems  and  moral  problems, 
you  must  really  get  back  to  the  people  before  you  have 
any  real  form.  I  do  not  believe  so  much  in  reforms 
from  the  top,  in  forcing  reforms  upon  the  people,  as  I  do 
in  the  people  becoming  educated  in  regard  to  their  needs 
and  desires,  and  expressing  them,  as  they  naturally  will, 
and  demanding  changes  in  the  government  to  meet  those 
needs.    They  themselves  will  bring  about  reform. 

Take,  for  instance,  the  planning  of  the  city.  What  can 
any  one  man,  what  can  twelve  men  do?  In  this  city,  for 
example,  ten  years  ago,  you  sent  for  the  greatest  city 
planner  in  the  world.  You  remember  what  he  did ;  how 
he  built  the  bungalows  on  Twin  Peaks  and  drew  his 
wonderful  plans,  and  after  the  fire  he  came  back  and 

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Addresses  World's  Social  Progress  Congress 

offered  San  Francisco  that  wonderful  plan,  that  would 
have  made  this  a  far  more  beautiful  city  than  it  is.  But 
there  was  no  one  willing  to  accept  the  plan ;  the  whole 
scheme  was  entirely  from  the  top,  and  so  the  Burnham 
plans  were  rejected. 

You  must  first  go  to  the  people  and  educate  them  if  you 
want  a  new  charter  in  any  city;  you  cannot  impose  a 
charter  from  above,  but  the  people  must  talk  and  think 
out  a  plan  together,  and  after  a  time  you  will  get  some- 
thing worth  while.  It  may  not  be  the  best;  the  experts 
might  say  that  they  could  give  you  something  far  better. 
The  Kaiser  has  been  able  to  make  reforms  in  German 
cities  greater  than  anything  we  have  here.  It  is  a  won- 
derful thing  to  see  those  cities,  without  slums,  trans- 
formed, but  transformed  from  above  by  the  power  of  au- 
tocratic government.  Over  there  the  Kaiser  and  the 
burgomaster,  and  the  influential  citizens  can  work  out 
these  things  in  a  way  that  we  cannot  do  here.  But  some- 
how we  here  feel  that  it  is  better  to  begin  at  the  bottom 
and  work  up. 

So  there  has  come  this  opportunity  of  getting  together ; 
this  getting  together  in  a  schoolhouse  and  talking  these 
things  over.  If  you  know  people,  things  look  very  differ- 
ent. If  you  don't  know  a  man,  you  may  call  him  a  bar- 
barian, but  if  you  come  to  know  him,  you  won't.  People 
are  just  folks ;  they  are  all  just  folks.  I  have  had  thirty 
years  of  life  in  the  slums  of  our  great  cities ;  I  have  raised 
my  family  where  most  people,  perhaps  wouldn't  care  to 
live;  but  I  have  come  to  realize  that  people  are  just  folks 
after  all. 

When  you  come  to  know  one  another,  the  differences 
are  not  very  great.  The  colonel's  lady  and  Judy  O'Grady 
are  sisters,  under  their  skins.  I  have  found,  as  I  mingled 
with  the  foreign  people,  and  they  are  the  people  that  I 

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know  perhaps  best,  that  outside  of  the  differences  in 
language  and  a  Httle  difference  in  color  and  customs,  we 
are  all  just  the  same.  I  go  into  the  home  of  my  Russian 
friends,  and  I  sit  down  to  dinner  with  them,  a  big  sam- 
ovar in  the  middle  of  the  table,  and  they  let  me  say  grace, 
and  I  say  grace  in  English  and  they  understand  it  in  Rus- 
sian. We  all  understand  the  language  of  love.  We  don't 
need  long  years  to  discover  people  if  we  will  just  be  folks 
with  them. 

We  must  have,  then,  a  place  where  we  can  all  get 
together,  as  we  can  in  the  schoolhouse.  I  wish  we  could 
do  it  in  some  church,  but  we  haven't  discovered  the  way 
to  do  that  yet.  We  are  divided  again  and  again,  and  you 
can't  issue  any  call  that  will  bring  all  the  different  divi- 
sions together.  If  you  do,  trouble  will  be  sure  to  start. 
We  can't  get  together  in  poHtics,  either.  But  we  can  get 
together  in  the  public  schools,  and  people  have  been  doing 
this  all  over  the  nation,  and  I  know  it  can  be  done. 

I  am  the  president  of  the  Civic  Center  in  my  town ;  my 
first  vice  president  is  a  Christian  Science  reader,  and  the 
second  vice  president  is  a  washerwoman,  and  we  meet  and 
discuss  all  the  problems  of  life.  And  I  feel  very  proud 
that  I  have  this  position.  I  hold  some  positions  that  you 
might  say  are  bigger  than  that,  but  none  of  which  I  am 
prouder.  This  is  so  near  the  common  life  that  I  am 
glad  I  am  connected  with  it ;  this  is  a  place  where  we  can 
develop  our  common,  human  work,  and  really  work  out 
brotherhood.  But  perhaps  we  must  first  get  back  to 
humanhood,  where  we  are  all  just  God's  children,  where 
we  can  get  so  close  together  that  these  differences  that 
have  seemed  so  great  in  the  past  will  disappear,  and  we 
can  just  join  hands  together  and  be  workers  together. 

I  haven't  any  very  great  message  to  bring  to  the  world ; 
only  the  simple  message  of  knowing  one  another  in  the 

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Addresses  World's  Social  Progress  Congress 

spirit  of  the  true  religion ;  to  join  hands  together  and  look 
in  one  another's  eyes,  and  say,  "My  brother,"  no  matter 
what  the  difference  in  state  or  birth  may  be.  Really,  I 
don't  see  much  difference  in  people.  I  have  dined  with 
lords  and  ladies  and  with  multimillionaires,  and  the  other 
day  I  went  out  in  the  jungle  and  had  a  little  Sunday 
afternoon  visit  with  the  fellows  out  there  in  the  jungle, 
and  they  asked  me  to  eat  Mulligan  with  them.  And  I 
would  have  enjoyed  eating  Mulligan  with  the  boys  out 
there  if  I  could  have  stayed,  as  much  as  I  did,  when  I 
was  over  in  Europe,  dining  with  those  high  in  authority. 
I  found  as  I  talked  with  these  boys  that  there  was  a  great 
longing  for  something  that  they  didn't  have ;  first  of  all, 
perhaps,  for  a  job.  They  were  not  tramps  or  hoboes,  but 
they  were  trying  to  find  a  place  in  the  world,  and  some 
of  them  were  getting  bitter.  But  some  of  them  had  a 
philosophy  and  saw  farther  than  that,  and  saw  beyond  to 
a  time  where  these  conditions  would  be  no  more.  They 
were  looking  for  that  time  when  we  should  all  be  workers 
together  for  the  common  good,  and  some  of  those  high 
up  have  not  yet  had  that  vision,  for  they  think  that  their 
positions  must  not  be  jeopardized;  they  are  wilHng  to 
make  the  world  better,  but  they  believe  it  must  come  from 
above.  But  all  the  great  reforms  will  come  from  people 
and  work  up. 

We  are  to-day  in  a  changing  time;  the  old  conditions 
cannot  go  on  much  longer.  I  am  an  optimist.  I  have 
seen  the  very  worst  of  life;  I  know  the  worst  of  all  the 
large  cities,  and  yet  I  am  very  hopeful.  But  if  you  should 
persuade  me  that  we  must  live  on  and  on  as  we  have  been 
during  these  last  years — oh,  but  you  can't  persuade  me 
of  it.  I  know  we  are  going  to  come  out  into  something 
like  what  Christ  meant  when  he  spoke  of  the  kingdom  of 

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God  on  earth,  and  the  greatest  part  that  man  can  do  now, 
is  to  do  his  part  toward  helping  on  that  time. 

I  have  been  a  worker  in  the  social  settlement  and  the 
institutional  church  for  over  thirty  years.  I  have  talked 
with  many  workers  at  home  and  abroad,  and  this  is  the 
message  that  I  bring:  That  in  the  next  ten  years  the 
activities  of  the  social  settlement  and  the  institutional 
church  will  have  passed  over  to  the  public,  to  the  city, 
the  State,  and  the  Nation.  There  will  be  left,  on  the  part 
of  the  settlement,  the  inspirational  element,  that  is  to 
say,  it  will  consist  of  an  educated,  refined  family  or  group 
who  wish  to  be  helpful  and  join  with  the  neighbors,  and 
who  seek  out  the  difficult  sections  of  the  city;  who  will 
settle  near  a  schoolhouse  and  who  will  simply  be  neigh- 
bors and  help  to  organize  with  the  neighbors  the  clubs  and 
classes  and  other  helpful  things,  through  the  public  school, 
instead  of  building  new  buildings. 

The  institutional  church  is  passing.  I  have  given  my 
life  to  clubs  and  gymnasiums,  and  all  the  rest  of  the 
things  that  make  up  the  institutional  church,  but  I  have 
been  working  toward  the  time  when  everything  of  that 
sort  would  be  done  in  a  larger  way  through  the  public. 
There  will  remain  the  inspirational  church,  not  the  in- 
stitutional church. 

Some  one  has  asked  me,  "Will  there  be  more  preachers 
or  fewer  when  that  time  comes?"  I  said,  ''There  may 
be  fewer,  but  the  quality  will  be  higher."  A  man  who 
succeeds  in  the  church  that  is  to  be  must  be  a  man  who 
has  had  a  wonderful  and  deep  spiritual  experience  and 
who  has  entered  into  this  great  spiritual  awakening  that 
is  going  on  all  over  the  world,  following  the  social  awak- 
ening. For  I  fully  beheve  that  the  deep  spiritual  power, 
the  living  with  the  Divine  and  recognizing  his  power 
in  our  lives — the  recognition  of  the  imminent  God — it  is 

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Addresses  World's  Social  Progress  Congress 

this  that  is  coming,  and  the  minister  who  reaUzes  this  will 
be  able  to  draw  the  people  together  and  inspire  the  young 
men  and  women  for  the  work  that  is  to  be  done  in  the 
days  to  come. 

So  we  have  to-day  this  wonderful  bill,  not  raising 
money  to  build  great  buildings,  for  the  buildings  are  built 
for  us ;  we  have  got  the  wonderful  buildings ;  and  they 
are  wonderful;  and  the  buildings  which  are  to  be  built 
are  still  more  wonderful.  We  are  just  building  in  Los 
Angeles  a  new  school  building,  and  soon  there  will  be 
twenty-seven  new  auditoriums  in  the  school  buildings  of 
Los  Angeles,  where  the  people  can  hold  any  kind  of  meet- 
ing they  want,  dealing  with  morals  or  esthetics  or  politics 
or  anything  that  is  for  the  good  of  the  people.  Perhaps 
we  haven't  all  understood  this,  and  as  a  city  planner,  I 
want  to  bring  it  to  your  attention  to  keep  the  thought  in 
the  minds  of  the  city  planners  to-day  regarding  the  city 
centers.  The  new  type  of  city  is  not  like  New  York,  for 
instance,  built  up  solidly  with  tenement  houses  and  apart- 
ment houses,  but  a  city  limited,  say,  to  a  five-mile  limit, 
and  then  with  satellite  cities  all  about,  connected  by  rapid 
transit.  That  is  the  ideal  now,  so  that  in  these  satellite 
cities  growing  up  all  about  in  the  metropolitan  district, 
there  will  be  an  opportunity  for  the  finest  kind  of  life  this 
country  has  ever  seen.  There  will  be  a  civic  center  in 
every  one  of  these  little  cities.  There  will  be  several 
things  brought  together  in  a  group;  the  school,  of  course, 
and  I  hope  the  newer  idea  of  the  one-story,  fire-proof 
schoolhouse  will  obtain.  There  will  be  the  gymnasium, 
the  public  baths,  and  the  voting  booths.  I  hope  to  see 
the  time  when  we  will  do  away  with  the  idea  of  the  pre- 
cinct and  make  the  school  district  the  political  unit,  so 
that  the  schoolhouse  may  become  the  political  center  of 

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that  unit  and  therefore  of  the  State.  There  will  be  club 
rooms  of  all  kinds ;  there  will  be  the  play  ground  and  the 
park  around  about  that. 

Don't  you  see  what  this  is  going  to  mean  in  the  days 
to  come?  The  people  have  been  broken  up  before,  sepa- 
rated from  one  another.  They  have  had  the  saloon  and 
the  brothel,  but  now  the  time  has  come  when  they  are 
going  to  find  something  better  than  that.  People  are  not 
naturally  bad.  Perhaps  that  is  not  good  theology ;  but 
from  my  experience,  and  I  know  the  worst,  I  know  peo- 
ple from  the  under  side;  I  say  people  are  not  naturally 
bad.  There  are  some  badly  born,  a  few  must  be  shut 
away  from  society,  but  with  the  great  mass  of  men,  if 
you  give  them  a  chance,  they  will  be  good.  As  I  think 
back  to  the  town  where  I  was  reared,  I  remember  that 
when  I  was  twenty-one  years  of  age,  I  had  never  seen  a 
saloon.  I  don't  know  of  a  single  boy  that  grew  up  with 
me  that  ever  took  to  drink.  But  if  there  had  been  saloons 
existing  in  these  communities  in  Maine  and  Iowa,  where 
I  lived,  I  couldn't  have  said  that.  There  would  have  been 
a  certain  proportion  that  would  surely  have  gone  to 
drunkards'  graves.  They  were  average  people,  but  the 
opportunity  for  good  was  there  rather  than  the  oppor- 
tunity for  bad,  and  so  they  chose  the  good.  So  I  am 
in  dead  earnest  about  making  it  easy  for  people  to  be 
good,  and  putting  before  them  the  opportunity  for  the 
largest  life. 

We  have,  then,  this  new  idea  of  what  the  schoolhouse 
is  to  be.  Some  of  my  church  friends  say,  "Aren't  you 
losing  a  tremendous  opportunity  for  the  church,  when 
you  give  up  the  work  of  the  institutional  church?"  It 
may  be,  in  a  narrow  sense,  I  am;  possibly  in  the  insti- 
tutional church  I  might  have,  at  the  end  of  the  year,  if 
I  kept  all  these  activities  in  the  church  building,  a  few 

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Addresses  World's  Social  Progress  Congress 

more  in  the  church.  But  when  I  thmk  of  the  larger  spir- 
itual opportunity  before  the  right  kind  of  people,  I  want 
to  give  everybody  this  chance. 

I  remember  once  I  had  a  bunch  of  fellows  who  were 
going  to  be  splendid  men ;  but  there  came  into  our  neigh- 
borhood anti-social  forces,  a  prize-fighting  paviHon  and  a 
race  track.  Within  three  months  I  lost  every  one  of  those 
boys;  I  have  never  been  able  to  get  one  of  them  back. 
Some  of  them  are  noted  prize  fighters  now.  But  all  the 
money  and  strength  I  had  put  into  my  work  seemed  lost 
because  the  State  allowed  race  tracks  and  fighting. 

The  church  ought  to  do  this  civic  center  work,  as  a 
sample  of  what  can  be  done,  until  the  people  are  educated ; 
but  when  the  city  or  State  is  ready  to  do  it  on  a  still 
larger  scale,  then  we  should  get  behind  that  movement. 

So  we  are  going  to  get  together  in  the  pubHc  school- 
houses,  and  I  have  four  purposes  for  which  the  public 
schools  should  be  used. 

In  the  first  place,  the  public  schoolhouse  and  its  grounds 
makes  possible  the  development  of  a  leisure  time  program 
in  every  city.  Eight  hours  of  work,  eight  hours  of  sleep, 
and  eight  hours  of  leisure  for  every  one,  and  if  you  will 
tell  me  how  a  boy  or  a  man  uses  these  eight  hours  of 
leisure,  I  will  tell  you  what  his  character  is.  The  time 
has  come  to  organize  the  leisure  time  of  the  community. 
If  we  do  not,  there  are  those  who  will,  who  are  seeking 
to  make  money  out  of  this  desire  for  play  and  recreation. 
They  have  been  doing  this,  and  have  cursed  every  com- 
munity. It  is  for  just  such  men  and  women  as  we  are 
here  to  organize  the  leisure  time  program  of  our  com- 
munities, and  let  it  center  in  the  schoolhouse  or  the  play- 
ground. Let  it  center  first,  if  you  will,  in  the  church 
itself,  but  in  some  way  organize  this  program,  recognize 
the  fact  that  people  must  play.    That  is  something  in  life 

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that  is  necessary ;  you  can't  expect  a  man  to  work  all  the 
time.  We  have  reduced  the  hours  of  labor  to  eight,  and 
that  is  as  it  should  be;  but  we  must  remember  the  other 
eight  hours.    Recreation  must  be  as  free  as  education. 

I  know  this  is  not  yet  true,  but  the  time  is  coming  in 
every  community.  We  are  going  to  have  a  hall  like  this 
in  every  high  school.  Think  what  an  opportunity  there 
will  be,  if  the  bill  goes  through  creating  a  commission  for 
educational  moving  pictures,  so  that  there  may  be  films 
for  use  all  over  the  State.  And  there  are  such  wonderful 
pictures  now  on  the  market!  Then  we  can  begin  to 
call  the  people  together,  not  only  for  education,  but  for 
recreation.  Here  in  this  town  and  in  every  town  of  any 
size  in  the  State,  are  the  organizations,  musical  and  other ; 
but  they  are  but  the  beginning  of  finer  things  for  the 
future,  when  the  finest  music  will  be  offered  absolutely 
free  to  all  the  people,  as  well  as  the  finest  art;  when 
everything  that  has  any  uplift  in  it  will  be  offered  to  the 
people. 

How  the  people  across  the  water  do  enjoy  these  things ! 
They,  also,  have  leisure  time,  and  their  leisure  time  has 
been  organized.  We  have  not  learned  how  to  do  that  yet, 
but  we  are  learning.  We  are  going  to  have  gymnasiums, 
baths,  moving  pictures,  pageants,  and  great  community 
days.  Do  you  know  what  that  means?  That  is  one  of 
the  new  things,  the  celebrating  of  community  days.  The 
other  morning  at  Riverside,  six  or  seven  thousand  peo- 
ple came  out  before  daylight  and  climbed  the  mountain 
to  be  ready  for  the  first  chord  of  music  that  was  to  usher 
in  the  Easter  dawn.  That  is  a  great  community  day  that 
is  celebrated  every  year  in  Riverside. 

I  was  in  Rochester  one  day  in  the  park  with  Charles 
Mulford  Robinson,  and  he  told  me  that  the  previous  Sun- 
day they  had  had  a  community  day.    There  had  been  a 

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Addresses  World's  Social  Progress  Congress 

hundred  varieties  of  lilacs  in  bloom  and  sixty  or  seventy 
thousand  people  came  out  to  enjoy  the  odor  and  beauty  of 
those  Hlacs.  He  told  me  that  they  were  planning  for  a 
great  day  in  that  park,  through  which  flows  a  river,  and 
that  they  were  going  to  have  floats  and  music,  and  that 
a  hundred  thousand  people  would  come  and  enjoy  all  that 
beauty,  and  the  pleasure  of  getting  together  in  the  open. 

In  city  after  city  this  is  being  done.  They  are  saying, 
we  must  get  together  and  enjoy  life ;  we  must  feel  that  we 
are  one.  So  this  is  going  to  be  worked  out  through  our 
social  centers. 

You  will  notice,  in  speaking  of  this  law,  that  I  have 
said  that  the  law  passed  by  the  last  legislature  makes  every 
schoolhouse  a  civic  center.  In  the  East,  they  use  the 
word,  "social  center."  Here  we  differentiate;  we  say 
that  a  social  center  is  established  by  individuals ;  but  the 
civic  center  is  where  the  people  make  use  of  the  school 
building,  where  they  ask  for  the  free  use  of  the  building 
to  carry  out  their  own  ideas.  You  have  these  here  and  in 
Los  Angeles.  I  wish  the  next  time  you  go  to  Los  Angeles 
you  would  go  to  the  Macy  School  and  see  what  is  being 
done  there.  It  was  a  dreary  place  in  the  old  days,  but 
there  is  no  gang  there  now.  They  are  all  in  the  school 
building.  There  has  not  been  a  juvenile  arrest  in  the  last 
year.  Miss  Sterry  told  me  the  other  day :  "Don't  publish 
this  abroad,  but  there  really  isn't  any  need  for  me  any 
more.  It  all  goes  on  of  itself  naturally  now;  these  boys 
don't  want  to  be  bad."  And  yet  these  same  boys  and 
girls  are  but  the  younger  brothers  and  sisters  of  the  old 
"Coyote  gang"  that  used  to  vex  us  so.  What  is  the  dif- 
ference? Simply  that  an  opportunity  has  been  given  to 
them  to  get  together  under  the  right  conditions  and  make 
better  lives  for  themselves. 

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The  slum  is  going  to  go.  I  never  speak  without  giving 
my  slogan,  "Los  Angeles,  1920 ;  a  city  of  a  million  people 
and  without  a  slum."  I  don't  care  quite  so  much  about 
the  million  people,  but  I  am  determined  to  see  that  it  is 
a  city  without  a  slum.  We  are  going  to  close  the  saloon ; 
the  brothel  is  going.  The  red  light  abatement  law  is  being 
appHed.  We  are  working  at  the  problem  of  housing.  In 
the  future  the  great  factories  will  no  longer  establish 
themselves  in  Los  Angeles,  but  in  the  open  country,  or 
near  the  harbor,  and  we  have  there  an  opportunity  such 
as  a  very  few  cities  in  this  country  have,  of  building  a 
new  type  of  city.  Already  a  lot  of  people  have  awakened 
to  the  necessity  of  carrying  out  such  a  plan. 

Then  there  are  three  other  things  for  which  we  want 
to  use  the  schoolhouses.  Here  is  a  place  for  adult  edu- 
cation. We  have  not  thought  about  the  adults  very  much 
in  the  past,  but  now  we  are  just  beginning  to  think  of  our 
opportunity,  and  what  must  be  done.  I  have  been  asked 
how  many  immigrants  are  going  to  come  to  us  after  the 
war  closes?  I  could  have  told  you  how  many  we  should 
be  likely  to  get,  before  the  war  started,  very  nearly,  and 
I  should  have  said  a  hundred  thousand  a  year  coming 
into  the  port  of  Los  Angeles.  How  many  now?  I  will 
tell  you  who  the  first  ones  will  be ;  they  will  be  those  sent 
for  by  the  ones  already  here,  whose  families  have  been 
broken  up  in  the  old  country.  A  German  told  me  that 
that  was  his  case.  He  said,  "My  two  brothers  are  in  the 
hospital;  my  brother-in-law  is  wounded;  my  uncle  is  on 
the  firing  line,  and  I  have  already  written  all  my  family 
and  told  them  to  take  the  first  ship  and  come  to  America 
and  I  would  look  after  them,  and  I  know  many  of  my 
friends  who  have  done  the  same  things." 

I  have  just  read  in  the  paper  that  Canada  is  preparing 
for  a  great  influx,  believing  that  when  the  soldiers  are 

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Addresses  World's  Social  Progress  Congress 

dismissed,  many  of  them,  finding  their  families  broken 
up  and  their  work  gone,  will  come  to  America.  At  any 
rate,  we  will  have  all  that  we  can  handle,  and  we  must 
provide  for  them;  we  must  open  every  school  to  them, 
beginning  from  the  start  with  the  best  literature. 

Then  the  next  two  things — and  these  two  last  are  the 
most  important  points  that  I  have  to  give  you  this  after- 
noon. The  schoolhouse  offers  the  best  place  for  citizen- 
ship education.  Do  you  know  what  I  mean?  You  will 
pardon  me  if  I  explain  by  describing  local  conditions, 
because  I  have  been  connected  with  them. 

To-day,  when  any  one  goes  to  the  clerk  in  Los  Angeles 
and  asks  to  take  out  his  second  papers,  the  clerk  hands 
him  a  little  card,  and  explains  to  him  that  he  will  have  to 
be  prepared  for  examination  after  three  months.  Then 
the  United  States  will  put  its  gumshoe  men  on  his  track ; 
find  out  what  his  character  abroad  was,  but  meanwhile 
the  applicant  must  be  prepared  to  pass  this  examination. 
And  so  the  clerk  advises  him  to  go  down  to  the  Los  An- 
geles high  school  and  study  for  three  months.  So  they 
are  going  down  there,  fifty  or  sixty  of  them  every  month, 
to  the  school  of  citizenship  under  Professor  Kelso,  and 
getting  instruction  in  government,  learning  about  our 
Federal,  State,  and  city  government,  and  listening  to  lec- 
tures by  prominent  people  every  Monday  night,  and  on 
Friday  night  there  is  instruction  in  the  English  language. 
At  the  end  of  that  time,  after  at  least  ten  weeks  of  study, 
they  are  given  the  certificate  of  which  I  hold  a  copy  in 
my  hand,  and  which  I  will  read  to  you.  This  is  the  first 
certificate  that  was  given  from  this  school  of  citizenship : 
LOS  ANGELES  EVENING  HIGH  SCHOOL 

DEPARTMENT  OF  CIVIC  EDUCATION  OF  IMMIGRANTS 

This  is  to  certify  that  Mike  Schultz  has  completed 

the  course  and  passed   the  examination  in   United 

244 


Our  Public  School  Properties  and  Social  Progress 

States  Citizenship  as  approved  by  the  Superior 
Court  of  the  State  of  California,  and  the  United 
States  District  Court,  having  jurisdiction  of  natu- 
ralization in  Los  Angeles  County. 

R.     G.     VAN     CLEVE, 

Principal. 
C.  C.  KELSO_, 

Director. 
November   17,   1914. 

With  that  certificate,  the  applicant  for  citizenship  takes 
his  witness  before  either  the  Superior  Judge  or  the  Fed- 
eral Judge,  and  does  not  have  any  public  examination. 
The  witness  testifies  as  to  his  character,  and  so  he  is  re- 
ceived into  citizenship.  If  a  young  man  or  woman  has 
gone  through  the  high  school,  and  studied  civics  and  re- 
ceived a  diploma,  that  is  accepted  in  place  of  a  public 
examination.  If  you  are  interested  in  good  citizenship, 
take  this  idea  to  your  own  county.  It  can  be  applied  in 
any  county ;  the  Federal  Government  has  accepted  it,  and 
any  school  system  that  will  give  the  required  education 
can  have  its  diploma  received  in  that  way,  instead  of  hav- 
ing the  applicant  examined  in  the  old  way. 

When  the  applicant  has  received  his  citizenship  papers, 
the  judge  instructs  him  to  go  on  the  following  night  to 
the  Los  Angeles  high  school  for  the  commencement  exer- 
cises. I  know  of  nothing  finer  in  the  State  of  California 
than  these  recognition  services  on  the  last  Friday  of  every 
month.  Here  are  these  new-made  citizens,  and  a  great 
house  full  of  people  to  greet  them;  and  on  the  platform 
is  one  of  the  members  of  our  Civic  Center  League  acting 
as  host.  The  judge  calls  the  new  citizens  up,  one  at  a 
time — and  they  have  come  from  all  the  warring  nations 
of  Europe — he  calls  them  to  the  platform,  and  gives  them 

245 


Addresses  World's  Social  Progress  Congress 

an  address  and  extends  to  them  the  right  hand  of  citizen- 
ship, just  as  formally  as  I  have  been  in  the  habit  of  receiv- 
ing men  into  the  church.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  Judge 
Wood  is  descended  from  a  line  of  Presbyterian  ministers, 
and  sometimes  he  makes  a  mistake,  and  calls  it  the  right 
hand  of  fellowship  instead  of  the  right  hand  of  citizen- 
ship. The  ceremony  is  as  solemn  as  the  communion  serv- 
ice in  the  church.  It  is  really  a  sacrament,  for  it  means  an 
absolute  transformation  in  the  lives  of  these  men  and 
women  who  come  to  us  in  that  way. 

Then  they  join  the  New  Citizens  Civic  Club,  and  once 
a  year  we  have  a  great  welcome  feast,  when  all  the  new 
citizens  come  together  with  the  old  citizens  at  a  dinner, 
and  the  old  citizen  pays  a  dollar  for  two  plates,  and  they 
all  sit  down  together  around  the  table,  and  after  dinner 
listen  to  the  speeches.  And  this  is  a  real  getting  together  ; 
there  are  no  differences  raised  of  speech  or  religion ;  they 
are  all  just  folks  getting  together,  and  what  it  means  to 
the  man  from  across  the  water  is  not  easy  to  express. 
Formerly  there  was  only  the  saloon-keeper  to  welcome 
him  with  the  right  hand  of  fellowship;  but  to-day  the 
finest  and  best  of  our  people  are  there  as  his  friends.  For 
these  people  bring  great  things  to  us  as  well  as  we  to 
them.  I  remember  one  night,  just  after  the  public  re- 
ception, when  we  always  ask  them  to  give  testimony  as 
to  why  they  are  glad  to  become  American  citizens,  one 
Russian  said,  "Until  to-night  I  was  a  dummy;  nobody 
ever  asked  my  advice  or  who  to  vote  for ;  but,  judge,  to- 
night you  have  given  me  a  voice,  and  from  now  on  I  will 
have  a  voice  in  the  government." 

Another  Russian  said :  "I  came  here  five  years  ago.  I 
worked  my  way  through  the  high  school  and  received  a 
diploma  on  which  I  received  my  citizenship.  I  have  been 
a  year  in  college.    In  my  country  this  could  not  have  hap- 

246 


Our  Public  School  Properties  and  Social  Progress 

pened,  but  here  you  have  been  so  kind  to  the  Russian ;  you 
have  given  him  all  that  you  have  given  to  the  native  born, 
and  I  am  glad  to  be  one  of  you." 

This  is  a  great,  new  movement  that  we  are  engaged  in, 
and  we  are  all  glad  that  we  have  a  part  in  it.  Governor 
Wallace  and  the  others  responsible  for  the  Civic  Center 
Law  put  it  through;  now  we  are  forming  civic  centers 
everywhere  in  all  the  schools.  If  you  have  not  civic  cen- 
ters in  your  town,  if  your  own  district  school  has  not 
been  organized,  I  wish  you  would  get  together.  Here  is 
our  little  constitution  for  the  civic  center,  for  it  is  a  good 
plan  to  have  them  somewhat  alike.  Some  organization 
should  begin;  perhaps  the  Parent  Teachers'  Association, 
perhaps  some  other  association;  somewhere  there  is  a 
group  in  your  town  that  will  want  to  get  together  to  dis- 
cuss these  great  problems  which  are  before  the  county 
and  the  State  and  the  Nation.  Here  is  our  form  of  or- 
ganization. Just  make  application  to  the  Board  of  Edu- 
cation, and  go  ahead  and  organize  and  elect  your  officers. 
Then  you  can  have  your  social  gatherings,  and  so  we  have 
at  last  begun  to  see  the  dawn  of  democracy.  And  the 
dawning  of  democracy  means  the  disappearance  of  so 
many  of  the  evil  things  that  have  troubled  us.  The  saloon 
is  going  from  Los  Angeles  County  and  from  all  over  the 
State,  the  next  time  we  have  a  chance  to  vote  on  that 
question;  and  with  the  saloon  gone,  and  the  schoolhouse 
as  a  meeting-place,  and  plenty  of  good  recreation,  and 
all  the  things  that  make  for  righteousness,  we  will  have 
a  better  day,  and  it  will  be  well  worth  while  to  live  in 
that  wonderful,  new  time. 


247 


Chapter  XIX. 
PROCESS  AND  CLIMAX  IN  SOCIAL  PROGRESS. 

BY  D.  M.  GANDIER. 

I  don't  know  of  anything  that  will  make  a  city  more 
livable  than  the  destruction  of  the  liquor  traffic.  I  believe 
the  biggest  destructive  element  in  the  community  is  the 
saloon. 

I  was  interested,  as  Doctor  Talbot  pointed  us  forward 
to  the  time  when  we  are  going  to  realize  the  brotherhood 
of  man,  the  completer  democracy,  and  when  we  destroy 
that  which  destroys  manhood,  we  are  making  for  democ- 
racy. You  can  have  some  forms  of  society  with  the 
mass  of  the  people  debauched,  because  the  few  at  the 
top  remain  in  control ;  but  if  democracy  is  to  succeed,  you 
must  have  the  mass  of  the  people  up  to  standard  in  both 
intellect  and  moral  worth;  and  if  the  mass  fall  below 
standard,  democracy  is  doomed. 

The  greatest  danger  to  democracy  to-day  is  the  de- 
moralizing influence  of  alcohol.  I  believe  when  we  shall 
have  realized  the  victory  in  our  fight  against  alcohol,  that 
we  shall  have  largely  cleared  the  way  for  making  the  city 
beautiful  and  livable,  and  for  getting  the  brotherhood  of 
man  on  earth.  I  want  to  tell  you  in  a  few  words  why  I 
believe  that  the  victory  will  be  ours  in  the  next  decade. 

In  the  first  place  I  find,  as  I  look  out  over  God's  uni- 
verse, that  he  works,  not  by  a  slow  and  endless  process 
which  goes  on  and  on  forever,  always  making  progress 
and  yet  never  finally  getting  to  the  goal.  I  find  through- 
out the  universe  that  God  works  by  progress,  plus  a 
process;  you  get  ready,  and  then  you  realize  the  fruit. 
You  have  the  process,  plus  the  climax.  That  is  the  way 
things  work  in  nature.    There  was  a  century  plant  in  my 

248 


Process  and  Climax  in  Social  Progress 

backyard  which  I  watched  for  two  years,  and  during  that 
time  there  did  not  seem  to  be  a  particle  of  change,  and 
for  ten  years  it  hadn't  changed  at  all.  Then  in  the  spring 
of  1901  that  century  plant  started  to  send  up  from  its 
center  a  great  trunk,  and  in  six  weeks  it  had  lifted  its 
immense  blossom  above  the  chimney  tops  of  the  house. 
Judged  by  the  rate  of  progress  during  the  previous  years, 
it  would  have  taken  a  century  indeed  to  accomplish  any- 
thing; but  what  you  had  in  fact  was  sixteen  years  of 
getting  ready,  and  then  a  climax,  during  which,  in  six 
short  weeks,  greater  visible  results  were  accomplished 
than  in  sixteen  years  before. 

That  is  what  I  see  going  on  in  the  world  of  nature,  and 
things  work  that  way  in  moral  reform  also.  When  Mrs. 
Harriet  Beecher  Stowe  visited  England,  she  was  pre- 
sented to  Queen  Victoria,  and  the  queen  gave  her  two 
bracelets,  one  engraved  with  the  date  of  the  emancipation 
of  slaves  in  England,  and  one  left  blank,  to  be  engraved 
when  the  slaves  were  emancipated  in  the  United  States. 
Mrs.  Stowe  never  expected  to  see  that  second  bracelet 
inscribed;  she  did  not  think  her  daughter  would  live  to 
see  it  inscribed;  but  she  did  hope  that  in  the  providence 
of  God,  her  little  grandchildren  might  see  the  inscription 
put  on  that  second  bracelet.  But  so  quickly  did  the  climax 
come,  that  Mrs.  Stowe  herself  lived  a  generation  after 
the  bracelet  had  been  inscribed;  twenty-five  years  after 
slavery  had  been  aboHshed  she  was  still  with  us. 

If  you  look  around  over  the  world  to-day  and  see  what 
is  actually  going  on,  and  then  think  about  the  past  hun- 
dred years,  I  think  you  will  admit  that  the  cHmax  in  the 
fight  against  alcohol  is  ours.  I  look  back  and  think  what 
conditions  were  a  hundred  years  ago,  I  am  not  surprised 
that  it  took  a  long  process  to  get  any  results.  We  were 
bound  in  ignorance  and  prejudice.    Do  you  know  that  a 

249 


Addresses  World's  Social  Progress  Congress 

hundred  years  ago  in  New  York,  a  Methodist  conference 
refused  to  pass  a  resokition  that  a  minister  should  not 
sell  liquor  on  the  side  to  increase  his  salary?  That  was 
in  the  year  1812.  The  next  year  they  adopted  the  resolu- 
tion in  a  modified  form,  and  provided  that  he  should  not 
sell  strong  Hquor ;  it  was  all  right  for  him  to  sell  wine  and 
beer,  but  not  brandy. 

In  the  churches  and  colleges,  and  in  the  social  life  of 
the  land  it  was  taken  for  granted  that  liquor  was  a  legiti- 
mate and  proper  beverage ;  only,  they  thought,  some  peo- 
ple abused  it.  To-day  preachers  who  believe  in  the  use 
of  alcoholic  liquor  for  drinking  purposes  are  just  about  as 
scarce  as  hen's  teeth;  if  you  do  find  one,  it  will  be 
hard  work  to  find  a  church  that  wants  him.  The  churches 
are  sounding  a  united  note  against  the  liquor  traffic  and 
holding  up  the  idea  of  total  abstinence  for  the  individual 
and  of  prohibition  for  the  nation,  and  all  the  churches 
are  falling  into  line. 

Look  at  the  scientific  world.  Only  a  few  years  ago  a 
man  was  denied  life  insurance  because  he  was  a  total 
abstainer.  What  do  we  find  to-day?  At  that  convention 
of  Hfe  insurance  presidents  in  New  York  City  last  De- 
cember, one  of  their  experts  who  had  been  figuring  on 
the  insurance  tables  for  forty  years,  reported  that  alcohol 
was  such  an  enemy  to  long  life  that  if  Europe  were  to 
maintain  her  present  prohibition  for  ten  years  she  would 
save  enough  able-bodied  men  to  take  the  place  of  half  a 
miUion  who  might  fall  in  the  present  war.  And  this  state- 
ment was  made  by  a  life  insurance  expert ;  he  wasn't  talk- 
ing as  a  temperance  enthusiast,  but  as  a  cold-blooded, 
business  scientist,  reporting  to  his  employer,  and  he  stated 
that  the  evidence  of  half  a  century  had  demonstrated  that 
alcohol  shortened  men's  lives  anywhere  from  eight  to 
twenty  years  on  an  average,  among  drinking  people. 

250 


Process  and  Climax  in  Social  Progress 

Everybody  realizes  to-day  that  alcohol  is  an  enemy  to 
good  health,  physical,  and  moral.  Did  you  notice  the 
resolution  passed  last  July  at  the  convention  of  alienists, 
saying  that  it  had  been  proven  to  the  satisfaction  of  that 
convention  that  even  the  moderate  use  of  alcohol  was 
productive  of  all  forms  of  mental  deterioration?  There- 
fore they  called  upon  the  States  of  this  Union  to  put 
liquor  where  men  couldn't  get  it  for  drinking  purposes, 
and  called  upon  the  doctors  to  lead  in  a  great  campaign 
of  education  against  the  harmful  effects  of  alcohol. 

How  about  the  industrial  field?  I  remember  when  we 
couldn't  have  a  logging  bee  without  having  something 
strong  to  drink,  and  every  man  helped  himself.  We  used 
to  serve  it  as  a  ration  in  our  army  and  navy  not  long  ago. 
How  about  to-day?  Every  employer  of  labor  realizes 
to-day  that  if  he  wants  to  get  the  best  out  of  his  men  he 
must  keep  them  away  from  liquor.  During  the  building 
of  the  Panama  Canal  the  order  was  issued  that  no  liquor 
was  to  be  sold.  Now  the  order  has  gone  forth  that  the 
employees  must  be  total  abstainers. 

A  great  corporation  has  issued  an  order  that  any  em- 
ployee who  retains  membership  in  a  club  where  liquor 
is  served,  will  be  discharged.  The  employer  realizes  the 
value  of  preventing  accidents,  since  the  passage  of  the 
employers'  liabiHty  act,  so  they  have  said  to  the  men, 
first,  that  they  must  not  drink  while  they  are  on  duty ;  and 
then  they  said,  "You  must  not  drink  while  you  are  off 
duty" ;  and  now  they  are  going  a  little  farther  and  are 
saying,  "You  can't  retain  your  service  with  us  and  keep 
your  membership  in  a  club  that  serves  liquor."  For  they 
know  that  if  they  do,  they  may  be  tempted  to  break  the 
rules. 

One  of  the  biggest  companies  in  South  Chicago,  which 
employs  a  great  many  men,  last  November  put  three  big, 

251 


Addresses  World's  Social  Progress  Congress 

electric  signs  over  the  three  gates  of  their  shops.  "Did 
booze  ever  do  you  any  good?"  These  were  the  words 
over  one  gate.  Over  another,  "Did  booze  ever  get  you 
a  better  job?"  And  over  the  third,  "Did  booze  ever  con- 
tribute to  the  happiness  of  your  family?" 

What  did  they  do  that  for?  Were  they  moved  by  a 
great  moral  impulse  to  get  their  men  to  leave  drink  alone  ? 
Not  a  bit  of  it.  They  were  moved  by  the  consciousness 
that  if  their  men  would  leave  drink  alone,  they  would  earn 
better  wages  for  themselves  and  better  dividends  for  the 
company.  It  was  a  matter  oi  cold-blooded  business.  The 
modern  industrial  world  is  against  the  liquor  traffic. 

I  was  stopped  by  the  superintendent  of  one  of  the  big 
lumber  companies  in  Mendocino  County  a  few  days  ago, 
and  he  wanted  to  know  if  I  couldn't  help  him  to  get  rid 
of  the  saloons  in  that  district.  I  said :  "What  has  aroused 
your  interest  ?  Two  years  ago  you  were  absolutely  indif- 
ferent; didn't  care  whether  the  saloons  were  closed  or 
not."  "Yes,  I  know,"  he  said,  "but  they  closed  them  up 
north  of  here  where  we  have  a  big  mill,  and  now  we  have 
had  eighteen  months  of  it  up  there,,  and  we  know  the  dif- 
ference. We  haven't  had  an  accident  up  there  since.  The 
men  have  to  go  a  good  many  miles  to  get  liquor  now.  We 
don't  have  any  men  drunk  on  Sunday  and  going  to  work 
Monday  morning  unsteady.  I  have  discovered  that  nearly 
all  our  accidents  in  this  mill  are  on  Monday,  and  that  is 
because  the  mills  are  closed  on  Sunday  and  the  saloons 
are  open,  and  on  Monday  the  men  are  unsteady,  and  acci- 
dents result.  We  have  found  out  that  it  is  to  our  advan- 
tage to  have  the  saloons  as  far  away  as  we  can  get  them." 
The  modern  industrial  world  is  awake  to  the  fact  that 
alcohol  is  against  efficiency. 

Connie  Mack  has  recently  said  that  moderate  drinking 
will  get  a  man  in  the  long  run  just  as  certainly  as  exces- 

252 


Process  and  Climax  in  Social  Progress 

sive  drinking.  There  is  nothing  that  takes  so  many  men 
off  the  diamond.  So  the  modern  world  of  sport  is  going 
to  be  very  largely  a  world  of  total  abstainers,  not  from  a 
moral  impulse,  but  because  of  the  consciousness  that  al- 
cohol is  an  enemy  of  efficiency. 

In  the  world  of  social  endeavor,  we  find  that  the  great 
word  is  "prevention."  When  we  sent  our  men  down  to 
Panama  to  build  the  canal,  if  we  had  sent  doctors  down 
to  cure  yellow  fever  after  it  developed,  we  would  have 
been  so  busy  curing  the  men  that  we  would  never  have 
been  able  to  build  the  canal.  But  we  sent  our  sanitary 
engineers  down  there  and  found  out  how  to  prevent  yel- 
low fever  and  clean  the  place  up,  and  the  result  was  that 
there  was  no  yellow  fever  and  the  Canal  Zone  became 
a  health  resort.  Prevention  is  the  word  for  us  in  the 
modern  medical  world  and  in  the  criminal  world  as  well. 
How  can  we  prevent  crime?  A  boy  saved  is  worth  sev- 
eral boys  rescued.  We  must  prevent  them  from  going 
down.  Now,  the  biggest  enemy  of  physical  and  moral 
health  is  alcohol,  and  if  we  can  destroy  alcohol,  we  shall 
do  more  to  prevent  disease,  physical  and  moral,  than  by 
any  other  thing  that  we  can  do,  and  we  shall  throw  around 
youth  an  environment  such  as  Doctor  Bartlett  was  telling 
you  about.  If  we  are  to  prevent  crime  and  disease,  the 
first  thing  to  do  is  to  outlaw  the  liquor  traffic,  and  get  ab- 
solutely rid  of  the  whole,  cursed  thing,  and  that  conviction 
is  taking  hold  of  men  to-day,  and  they  are  going  to  do  it. 

Look  in  the  poHtical  world.  What  a  change !  I  re- 
member going  up  to  Sacramento  to  try  to  get  a  law  to  let 
the  people  close  the  saloons  if  they  wanted  to,  and  I  was 
a  very  lonesome  fellow  around  the  halls  up  there.  They 
were  afraid  to  talk  about  the  temperance  question  even 
in  a  whisper.    To-day  you  can  get  about  half  of  the  mem- 

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Addresses  World's  Social  Progress  Congress 

bers  of  the  Senate  to  stand  up  on  the  floor  and  say  openly 
that  they  would  like  a  chance  to  vote  against  the  whole 
thing. 

Last  spring  we  had  nine  prohibition  States  in  this 
Union.  To-night  we  have  nine  more.  First  we  got  Vir- 
ginia, then  Nevada,  Colorado,  Washington,  and  Oregon, 
and  since  the  first  of  January,  Arkansas  and  Alabama  and 
Idaho  and  Iowa ;  and  Utah  would  have  done  it,  too,  if  the 
governor  hadn't  vetoed  the  bill  after  the  legislature  ad- 
journed. But  the  first  time  the  people  get  a  chance  they 
will  pass  it,  and  the  governor  can't  veto  it. 

For  the  first  time  this  year  the  question  of  prohibition 
got  on  to  the  floor  of  Congress.  There  was  opposition  to 
the  prohibition  resolution  from  the  White  House;  Presi- 
dent Wilson  opposed  it  quietly  but  decidedly,  and  it  was 
opposed  by  the  Republican  leader,  and  by  Mr.  Under- 
wood, and  yet  a  majority  pf  the  members  of  the  House 
of  Representatives  in  Washington  voted  in  favor  of 
prohibition.  It  takes  two  thirds  to  submit  it,  but  a  ma- 
jority voted  for  it,  even  in  spite  of  the  opposition.  They 
told  us  we  were  fools  to  bring  it  up  under  such  conditions, 
and  yet  we  got  a  majority.  The  indications  are  that  we 
will  get  two-thirds  in  the  very  near  future. 

Think  of  the  testimony  that  has  come  from  Russia  since 
that  country  has  been  on  the  water  wagon.  The  Minister 
of  Finance  said  that  in  two  mining  regions  where  thirty 
per  cent  of  the  men  had  been  called  to  the  army,  the 
remaining  seventy  per  cent  were  producing  more  than 
the  whole  force  used  to  produce  when  they  drank.  Rus- 
sia, without  liquor,  even  with  war,  is  more  prosperous 
than  Russia  with  liquor  and  at  peace. 

England  is  facing  the  fact  that  if  they  are  to  do  their 
best  in  the  war  they  must  get  rid  of  liquor.  Lloyd  George 
said,  "We  are  fighting  Germany,  Austria,  and  liquor,  and 

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Process  and  Climax  in  Social  Progress 

of  these  three  the  worst  is  liquor."  King  George  has 
given  orders  that  there  shall  be  no  more  wine  served  in 
the  royal  household;  the  wine  cellars  are  sealed,  and  the 
order  has  gone  forth  that  there  is  to  be  no  more  liquor 
served  in  Kitchener's  house,  and  all  this  so  that  it  may 
be  possible  to  suppress  the  traffic  that  is  debauching  the 
nation. 

A  social  worker  in  England  went  before  the  National 
Council  of  the  Churches  and  made  this  plea.  He  asked 
the  churches  to  help  prepare  for  ten  thousand  babies  that 
will  be  born  in  a  few  months,  denied  a  father's  name; 
ten  thousand  children  whose  mothers  are  not  wives,  and 
he  said  to  that  council,  "This  has  happened  because  drink 
has  dethroned  the  judgment  and  the  reason  and  the  self- 
control  of  our  soldier  boys,  and  they  have  debauched  our 
girls."  Do  you  wonder  that  England  is  facing  the  ques- 
tion as  to  how  she  can  get  rid  of  that  influence  which  is 
worse  than  war,  the  debauching  influence  of  the  liquor 
traffic  ? 

When  I  look  around  and  see  the  whole  civilized  world 
awake  to  the  fact  that  this  is  the  cause  of  economic  ineffi- 
ciency, of  moral  debauchery  and  debasement,  and  all 
working  together,  the  moral  and  financial  and  industrial 
forces  of  the  nation,  to  remove  the  cause,  I  am  absolutely 
sure  that  God's  climax  is  not  far  away,  and  I  expect,  in 
the  next  five  years,  to  see  written  into  the  Constitution  of 
the  United  States,  a  prohibition  of  the  sale  and  manu- 
facture of  alcohol;  that  will  mean  more  to  civilization 
than  did  the  emancipation  of  the  slaves.  I  thank  God 
that  I  am  alive  to-day,  and  that  I  have  put  some  of  my 
young  manhood  into  the  fight,  laying  the  foundations  of 
the  mighty  empire  to  be  built  on  this  Pacific  Coast,  and 
that  will  make  possible  and  successful  a  democracy  of 
pure  manhood  and  womanhood. 

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Chapter  XX. 

THE  MOVEMENT  AGAINST  THE  SALOON  AND 
SOCIAL  PROGRESS. 

BY  MATT.  S.  HUGHES. 

When  I  asked  Doctor  Gandier  this  afternoon  what 
phase  of  the  subject  he  would  like  to  have  me  present,  he 
gave  me  a  roving  commission,  much  to  my  delight,  and 
perhaps  it  will  be  much  to  your  regret.  But  I  think,  as  I 
speak  first,  that  I  will  try  to  sketch  in  what  might  be 
called  the  historical  background  of  our  whole  subject. 
There  is  a  logic  in  events,  as  well  as  a  logic  of  words; 
underlying  the  great  temperance  movement  of  to-day  are 
two  fundamental  principles:  One  is  total  abstinence  for 
the  individual,  and  the  other,  legal  prohibition  for  the 
State.  Now,  there  is  no  necessary  and  vital  connection  be- 
tween these  two.  Theoretically  a  man  may  be  a  total  ab- 
stainer in  the  absence  of  a  prohibitory  law ;  and  there  are 
rumors  that  people  sometimes  indulge  in  the  use  of  intox- 
icating liquors,  even  in  prohibition  States.  But  the  experi- 
ence of  those  who  have  been  at  work  in  the  temperance 
campaigns  indicates  that  these  things  must  go  hand  in 
hand.  We  must  have  total  abstinence  and  legal  prohi- 
bition ;  for  the  drink  habit  supports  the  drink  traffic,  and 
the  traffic  supports  the  habit ;  and  in  the  course  of  events, 
those  who  have  been  engaged  in  temperance  reform  have 
been  brought  to  the  espousal  of  these  two  principles. 

But  it  will  surprise  some  to  learn  that  in  the  beginning 
the  temperance  reform  movement  was  characterized  by 
neither  one  of  these  two  fundamental  principles  of  the 
movement  to-day. 

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The  Movement  Against  the  Saloon  and  Social  Progress 

The  honor  of  inaugurating  the  temperance  reform 
movement  belongs  to  the  nineteenth  century,  and  to  the 
United  States  of  America.  It  was  already  impending  as 
a  conflict  in  the  closing  years  of  the  eighteenth  century ; 
but  the  eyes  of  men  were  holden  to  the  vastness  of  its 
proportions. 

It  came  in  consequence  of  a  desperate  need  in  the  early 
years  of  the  American  Republic,  for  according  to  history, 
those  were  years  of  drunkenness,  and  this  condition  had 
been  aggravated  by  two  circumstances;  first,  the  laxness 
resulting  from  seven  years  of  war,  during  which  a  great 
many  of  the  influential  leaders  of  the  colonies  had  fallen 
into  dangerous  habits  of  drink,  and  then,  as  always,  those 
who  were  leaders,  did  not  lack  imitators  among  the  rank 
and  file. 

The  other  thing  was  the  increased  importation  and 
manufacture  of  distilled  spirits,  which  furnished  a  dead- 
Her  substitute  for  the  milder  fermented  liquors,  which, 
up  to  that  time,  had  been  the  chief  drinks  of  the  people. 

Drinking  had  the  sanction  of  social  custom.  In  the 
family,  liquor  was  used  as  a  cure  in  the  case  of  sickness, 
and  the  same  liquor  was  used  to  drink  each  other's  health 
at  social  functions.  The  farmer  furnished  it  to  his  field 
hands,  and  at  college  commencements  everybody  got 
openly  drunk.  Civic  displays,  family  gatherings,  all  so- 
cial functions,  were  characterized  by  the  flow  of  an 
abundance  of  liquor.  It  had  the  tacit  sanction  of  the 
Church.  In  the  almost  universal  spirit  of  drinking,  the 
habits  of  the  clergy  had  not  escaped.  They  drank  before 
they  entered  their  pulpits,  and  with  the  people  after  the 
services.  Dr.  Lyman  Beecher  has  left  on  record  a  de- 
scription of  the  ordination  of  a  minister  in  Connecticut; 
and  it  was  that  experience  of  his  which  inspired  that  fa- 
mous set  of  temperance  sermons  which  had  so  much  to 

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Addresses  World's  Social  Progress  Congress 

do  with  the  early  history  of  the  prohibition  campaign  in 
the  United  States  of  America. 

If  we  were  looking  for  the  pioneer  reformer  in  the  tem- 
perance work  in  America,  strange  to  say,  we  should  be 
obliged  to  go  to  England  ;  and  history  confers  on  the  name 
of  John  Wesley,  as  early  as  1743,  that  distinction,  in  the 
rules  given  for  the  United  Societies  of  Methodists. 
Among  those  rules  was  one  which  provided  that  they 
should  not  drink  ardent  spirits  or  beer,  nor  use  spirits 
except  in  cases  of  extreme  necessity.  All  of  that  becomes 
exceedingly  interesting,  for  when  the  Methodist  Episcopal 
Church  was  organized  here  in  1784,  that  set  of  rules  was 
adopted ;  and  from  the  beginning,  the  Methodist  Episco- 
pal Church  has  been  under  a  prohibitory  law. 

If  you  want  to  know  how  far  John  Wesley  was  ahead 
of  his  times,  let  us  notice  just  a  moment,  if  you  please, 
what  followed  his  early  legislation.  That  rule  was 
adopted  in  1784,  in  the  United  States  by  the  United  So- 
ciety of  Methodists.  In  1790  they  proceeded  to  modify 
it,  and  cut  out  the  words,  "extreme  necessity"  and  "buying 
and  selling."  A  man  then  could  be  a  bishop,  and  buy 
and  sell  liquor,  and  those  words  were  never  restored  un- 
til 1848.  In  the  General  Conference  of  1812,  after  it  had 
been  called  up,  the  General  Conference  voted  down  a 
resolution  which  provided  that  no  local  preacher  should 
maintain  his  ministerial  character  if  found  guilty  of  buy- 
ing or  selling  liquor;  and  it  was  not  until  ninety  years 
after  John  Wesley  that  the  very  first  temperance  conven- 
tion was  held  in  the  United  States.  He  was  at  least  a 
hundred  years  ahead  of  those  engaged  in  temperance 
reform. 

The  first  phase  of  temperance  reform  in  this  country 
may  be  designated  as  the  phase  of  unorganized  protest; 
a  time  when  men's  eyes  were  being  opened  to  the  evils  of 

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The  Movement  Against  the  Saloon  and  Social  Progress 

drink,  and  some  voices  were  being  lifted  against  these 
evils.  The  prophet  of  that  first  dispensation  was  Dr. 
Benjamin  Ross,  of  Philadelphia.  He  had  received  his 
medical  education  abroad  and  in  Philadelphia;  he  was  a 
patriot  as  well  as  a  physician,  and  at  this  time  he  occupied 
a  place  of  prominence  among  the  medical  men  of  Phila- 
delphia. He  had  been  a  member  of  the  Continental  Con- 
gress of  1776,  and  was  one  of  the  signers  of  the  Decla- 
ration of  Independence,  and  he  had  been  Surgeon-Gen- 
eral of  the  Medical  Department  of  the  Continental  Army, 
and  a  member  of  the  convention  called  in  Philadelphia 
for  the  ratification  of  the  Constitution.  He  was  a  man 
so  outstanding  that  his  voice  would  be  listened  to  in  the 
discussion  of  any  public  question.  In  1875,  he  issued  his 
famous  monograph  which  bore  the  title,  "The  Evil  Effects 
of  Alcoholic  Spirits  upon  the  Human  Mind  and  Body." 
It  was  the  very  first  formulated  discussion  of  the  liquor 
subject  by  any  man  who  might  presume  to  speak  with 
scientific  authority.  It  was  the  leading  document  of  the 
temperance  movement  for  forty  years,  and  he  struck 
boldly  at  the  twin  superstition;  the  value  of  alcohol  as  a 
food,  and  as  a  medicine.  But  the  weakness  of  his  book 
was  the  recommendation  of  wine  and  beer  as  substitutes 
for  distilled  liquors.  This  document  started  no  move- 
ment, but  it  had  a  great  deal  to  do  with  the  raising  up 
of  other  men  who  took  part  in  the  movement  in  the  nine- 
teenth century. 

Then  followed  a  period  of  organization,  and  that  began 
in  the  year  1808,  when  the  first  temperance  society  was 
organized.  And  for  a  quarter  of  a  century,  organizations 
sprang  up  all  over  the  new  Republic.  The  outstanding 
feature  in  this  period  of  organization,  however,  was  the 
coming  into  being  of  the  American  Temperance  Society 
in  the  year  1826.    In  just  a  few  years  it  had  spread  into  a 

259 


Addresses  World's  Social  Progress  Congress 

score  of  States;  it  numbered  about  seven  thousand  local 
societies ;  it  had  over  a  million  members,  and  it  materially- 
cut  down  the  importation  and  manufacture  of  distilled 
spirits. 

Now,  it  would  seem  as  if  the  movement  were  well  un- 
der way ;  but  will  it  surprise  you  if  I  say  that  it  was  not 
until  1836  that  there  was  a  really  genuine  temperance 
society  in  the  United  States,  what  we  would  mean  to- 
day when  we  speak  of  a  temperance  society  ?  The  prog- 
ress had  been  much  more  apparent  than  real,  for  the  only 
thing  that  these  early  temperance  societies  had  attempted 
to  do  was  to  do  away  with  the  use  of  distilled  spirits, 
leaving  the  people  free  to  use  the  temperance  drinks, 
known  as  wine  and  beer  and  cider. 

For  instance,  the  first  temperance  society  organized 
had  this  by-law;  that  no  member  of  the  society  was  to 
use  whisky  or  gin  or  brandy  or  a  composition  of  any 
of  these,  under  penalty  of  a  fine  of  twenty-five  cents,  ex- 
cept at  a  pubHc  dinner;  and  it  was  further  provided  in 
that  by-law,  that  this  should  not  interfere  with  the  use  of 
ardent  spirits  in  connection  with  religious  exercises,  in- 
cluding weddings  and  christenings  and  installations. 

Another  society,  organized  in  1818,  had  this  provision; 
that  if  any  member  of  that  society  should  be  found  intox- 
icated, he  should  pay  a  fine  of  two  shillings,  unless  it 
was  on  the  Fourth  of  July  or  any  regular  Muster  Day. 
Those  were  the  fanatics  of  that  time. 

As  late  as  1833,  the  leading  temperance  organization, 
the  American  Temperance  Society,  at  its  national  conven- 
tion, voted  down  a  resolution  putting  that  society  upon 
the  platform  of  total  abstinence  for  its  membership.  But 
in  1836,  teetotalism,  something  new  under  the  sun  that 
the  people  had  been  hearing  about  for  several  years,  came 
to  the  front. 

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The  Movement  Against  the  Saloon  and  Social  Progress 

The  national  convention  of  the  American  Temperance 
Society  was  held  in  Saratoga,  not  far  from  where-  one 
of  the  battles  of  the  War  of  Independence  was  fought. 
The  society,  at  that  convention,  passed  the  total  abstain- 
ers' resolution,  and  it  was  the  signal  for  wholesale  de- 
sertions from  the  temperance  ranks,  by  the  hundreds 
and  thousands  temperance  societies  disbanded.  They 
didn't  intend  to  be  called  fanatics,  and  men  whose  voices 
had  been  heard  under  the  old  pledge,  were  now  silent. 

But  at  least  the  bankrupt  temperance  movement — a 
drunken  temperance  movement — had  one  of  the  funda- 
mental principles  in  its  .possession. 

Then  followed  what  may  be  called  the  legislative  period. 
That  may  be  dated  from  the  year  1838.  They  discovered 
what  would  be  a  good  lesson  for  us  to  learn;  they  dis- 
covered that  moral  enthusiasm  without  legal  machinery 
is  never  strong  enough  to  deal  with  commercialized  evil. 
You  may  date  that  new  period  from  1838,  when  a  com- 
mittee of  the  Maine  legislature  made  a  recommendation 
of  a  prohibition  law  to  save  the  people  from  the  influence 
of  the  legalized  traffic.  It  failed  to  get  through  the  legis- 
lature ;  you  have  heard  of  good  measures  since  that  have 
failed.  But  the  people  of  the  State  of  Maine  took  the 
matter  up  and  elected  a  legislature  that  passed  the  bill  at 
a  succeeding  session.  The  governor  vetoed  it — you  have 
heard  of  that  sort  of  thing  since.  But  in  the  year  1846 
they  placed  the  first  temperance  law  upon  the  statute  book 
of  a  State,  in  the  State  of  Maine.  It  was  a  weak  law,  and 
in  1852,  under  the  leadership  of  General  Neal  Dow,  who 
has  been  called  the  "Columbus  of  Prohibition,"  that  law 
was  given  teeth.  They  added  to  it  the  search  and  seizure 
clause,  as  it  was  called,  which  provided  that  the  apparatus 
of  the  business  should  be  evidence  of  the  business  in  court. 
And  that  Maine  law,  the  original  law  passed  in  1846, 

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Addresses  World's  Social  Progress  Congress 

has  been  altered  and  strengthened,  but  has  never  been 
repealed. 

Then  the  movement  went  on  from  1846  to  1860,  and 
there  were  prohibition  laws  in  Maine,  New  Hampshire, 
Vermont,  Rhode  Island,  Connecticut,  Massachusetts,  Del- 
aware, New  York,  Michigan,  and  other  States,  until  sev- 
enteen States  had  passed  prohibition  laws,  some  of  them 
twice.  In  New  Jersey,  the  popular  vote  was  in  favor  of 
it,  but  they  succeeded  in  overcoming  the  popular  voice  in 
the  legislature.  If  the  movement  had  gone  on  as  it 
started  in  1846,  the  American  saloon  would  have  been 
extinct  by  1865. 

Have  you  ever  stopped  to  ask  why  the  movement  was 
suddenly  checked,  and  why,  fifty  years  after  the  time 
when  the  conflict  ought  to  have  been  over,  we  are  still 
in  the  midst  of  it?  What  happened  just  about  that  time? 
Then  came  the  Civil  War.  That  period  has  been  prolific 
of  problems  which  we  have  been  trying  to  solve  ever 
since.  It  was  a  time,  you  remember,  when  they  passed 
a  war  tariff,  and  we  have  been  paying  war  tariffs  ever 
since  the  Civil  War,  at  first  for  the  carrying  on  of  hos- 
tilities, and  later  for  the  protection  of  infant  industries 
until  those  great,  protected  industries  became  overgrown, 
and  parties  rose  and  fell  as  they  promised  the  people  to 
deal  with  the  tariff.  It  was  at  the  time  when  we  began  to 
pay  great  subsidies  to  railroads,  and  millions  of  acres  of 
the  people's  land  were  handed  over  to  them.  California 
remained  true  to  the  Union,  not  so  much  by  virtue  of  any 
vital  connection  with  it,  but  rather  as  a  matter  of  senti- 
ment, and  Lincoln  saw  the  necessity,  as  did  other  leaders, 
of  binding  the  two  coasts  together  with  ties  of  steel. 
Then  came  the  land  grabs  and  the  timber  scandals,  and 
the  Credit  Mobilier,  and  Congressmen  were  found  with 
that  stock  in  their  possession.     It  was  the  beginning  of 

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The  Movement  Against  the  Saloon  and  Social  Progress 

the  tremendous  era  of  graft  in  the  United  States,  and 
much  of  the  reform  of  the  twentieth  century  has  been 
directed  against  the  evils  which  arose  during  the  Civil 
War. 

It  was  necessary  to  raise  more  revenue,  and  you  re- 
member that  they  talked  of  taxing  liquor;  and  one  man 
in  Washington,  a  man  of  powerful  intellect,  who  knew 
what  that  meant — Lincoln — when  the  bill  was  laid  before 
him,  declared  that  he  would  rather  lose  his  right  arm 
than  sign  it.  But  finally,  with  the  promise  of  the  liquor 
traffic  that  it  should  be  repealed  after  the  war,  he  did 
sign  it.  That  promise  has  never  been  fulfilled  by  the 
liquor  interests.  The  liquor  interests  stayed  at  home  dur- 
ing the  war  and  fattened  their  purses  at  the  expense  of 
the  people.  It  is  a  significant  thing  that  the  United  States 
Brewers'  Association  dates  from  the  year  1862 ;  while  we 
were  in  the  midst  of  the  Civil  War,  they  were  at  home, 
fixing  up  their  fences.  And  the  first  ''patriotic"  action  of 
that  association— and  I  hope  you  will  remember  it  next 
year — was  to  make  a  fight  against  a  tax  of  a  dollar  a 
barrel  on  beer  for  the  purpose  of  war  revenue,  and  they 
succeeded  in  getting  it  reduced  to  sixty  cents. 

When  the  smoke  lifted  from  the  battlefields  and  the 
soldiers  came  home,  out  of  all  these  States  that  had 
prohibited  the  liquor  traffic,  one  only  remained  true,  and 
that  was  the  State  of  Maine.  All  the  ground  was  lost 
during  that  time.  War  means  something  more  than  a 
few  battlefields  and  a  few  men  killed.  We  shall  be  pay- 
ing for  that  war,  and  dealing  with  the  problems  of  that 
war  when  we  march,  as  a  people,  into  the  twenty-first 
century.  It  gave  the  whisky  traffic  its  great  opportunity, 
and  it  was  quick  to  seize  it. 

When  the  enemies  of  liquor  came  home,  like  General 
Dow,  they  were  for  jumping  in  at  once  to  recover  their 

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Addresses  World's  Social  Progress  Congress 

lost  territory.  Then  sounded  the  voice  of  the  whisky 
politician;  we  had  just  been  through  a  great  conflict;  we 
were  now  in  a  period  of  reconstruction,  and  no  patriotic 
citizen  would  introduce  any  irritating  question  at  this 
time.  And  so  they  waited  through  1866,  and  the  people 
were  drunk,  and  through  1867,  and  the  people  were 
drunker,  and  through  1868,  and  the  people  were  drunker 
still;  and  in  1869  they  called  a  prohibition  convention  in 
the  city  of  Chicago  and  launched  the  Third  Party  prohi- 
bition movement.  I  am  not  a  Third  Party  prohibitionist ; 
there  are  some  of  us  who  believe  that  the  final  triumph 
will  not  come  through  any  one  party ;  but  I  pause  here  to 
say  this,  that  if  there  is  any  set  of  men  in  the  United 
States  who  deserve  our  honor,  it  is  that  httle  handful  who 
have  been  true  to  their  convictions  for  nearly  two  gener- 
ations, and  who  have  been  ready,  at  every  election,  to 
walk  up  and  lose  their  votes,  and  run  for  office,  when  they 
knew  that  they  didn't  have  a  ghost  of  a  chance.  It  is  the 
only  political  party  that  has  paid  its  own  bills  instead  of 
passing  the  hat  around  among  the  interests,  with  the  un- 
derstanding that  it  was  to  be  repaid  later  by  legislation 
at  the  expense  of  the  people.  There  has  never  been  a 
time  since  1869  when  the  Americans  went  to  the  polls  at 
a  general  election,  that  they  haven't  had  that  question  kept 
before  them;  and  when  we  come  to  the  hour  of  victory, 
no  Httle  credit  will  belong  to  that  faithful  band  who  have 
kept  the  question  alive  all  these  discouraging  years. 

Since  that  time  we  have  moved  out  into  a  still  larger 
field.  We  began  with  the  fight  against  the  saloons  in  the 
municipalities.  Then  the  idea  expanded  to  the  State,  and 
now  it  has  been  enlarged  to  the  idea  of  national  prohi- 
bition. We  have  had  a  heavy  task  on  our  hands  since  we 
undertook  to  recover  the  lost  ground,  for  during  the  time 
that  the  patriots  were  at  the  front,  the  liquor  interests 

264 


The  Movement  Against  the  Saloon  and  Social  Progress 

were  at  home,  massing  their  forces,  digging  their  en- 
trenchments and  making  their  aUiances.  The  first  thing 
they  did  was  to  divide  the  country  into  factions.  When- 
ever you  get  a  moral  question,  it  always  divides  the  peo- 
ple into  factions.  In  this  case,  one  was  the  drinking 
and  the  other  the  non-drinking  faction. 

The  second  thing  was  the  development  of  the  American 
saloon.  In  the  beginning  liquor  was  sold  at  the  grocery 
store ;  but  there  was  no  particular  place  for  it  as  we  have 
now.  But  then  followed  the  evolution  of  our  typical 
American  saloon,  a  place  dedicated  simply  to  the  sale  of 
liquor.  It  developed  the  long,  stand-up  bar  and  the  free 
lunch  with  its  highly-spiced  food,  and  also  it  developed 
the  back  door  and  the  side  door. 

It  also  formed  alliances  with  various  businesses.  We 
have  come  to  a  time  when  no  man  stands  before  an  intel- 
ligent audience  in  the  United  States  of  America  and  tries 
to  defend  the  American  saloon  as  an  institution  that  is 
essential  to  the  welfare  of  any  community ;  but  the  saloon 
relies  upon  its  alliances.  It  allies  itself  with  the  corrupt 
politician  who  is  always  ready  to  sacrifice  the  people  for 
power;  with  industries,  such  as  wine  grape  growing  and 
hop  growing;  with  the  trades  that  they  patronize,  such 
as  harness  makers  and  coopers.  You  know,  in  the  last 
campaign  in  this  State,  if  you  wanted  to  find  a  saloon- 
keeper, you  always  found  him  out  hiding  behind  a  green 
grape  vine  or  a  hop  pole.  They  have  a  way  of  pushing 
these  allied  interests  out  to  the  front  and  making  them 
stand  the  brunt  of  the  attack.  And  so  you  find  the  press 
filled  with  stories  of  what  is  going  to  happen  to  certain 
industries  if  the  people  close  the  saloons.  Here  in  Cali- 
fornia, it  is  the  grape  growers  who  bear  the  brunt  of  it. 
Their  attorneys  have  wept  copious  tears  over  what  would 
happen  to  our  citizens ;  they  said  there  were  hundreds  of 

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Addresses  World's  Social  Progress  Congress 

industrious  people  who  have  put  their  savings  into  these 
industries.  But  there  is  no  industry  or  alHed  industry 
that  has  any  right  beyond  what  is  represented  by  the  li- 
cense of  the  saloon-keeper  or  the  brewer.  No  man  can 
demand  a  license  as  a  right;  he  can  ask  for  it,  but  the 
people  have  a  right  to  refuse.  What  does  a  man  get  when 
he  gets  a  liquor  license?  He  gets  a  permit  to  sell  intox- 
icating liquors  for  twelve  months,  and  when  that  time  is 
up,  he  has  had  everything  that  he  has  paid  for,  and  if  he 
wants  to  continue  the  business  he  must  get  another  license. 

In  the  last  forty  years  the  men  who  have  planted  grape 
vineyards  in  the  State  of  California  have  gambled  on  the 
continued  moral  obtuseness  of  the  citizenship  of  Cali- 
fornia ;  and  every  single  wine  grape  vineyard  is  an  insult 
to  the  people  of  the  State. 

Sympathy  with  them  ?  Yes ;  the  same  sympathy  that  I 
have  with  any  other  tin-horn  gambler  who  gambles  and 
loses.  They  are  no  better  than  the  saloon-keepers.  No 
man  who  is  willing  to  make  a  part  of  his  Hving  out  of  the 
saloon  business  is  any  better  than  the  man  who  makes  the 
whole  of  it  out  of  the  business. 

They  sent  me  a  little  pamphlet  from  the  Brewers'  Pro- 
tective Association.  I  said  at  the  time,  it  ought  never  to 
have  been  printed  on  a  modern  printing  press;  it  ought 
to  have  been  made  in  the  sign  language  of  the  primitive 
savage  of  the  stone  age.  One  of  the  vine  growers  from 
this  part  of  the  State  wrote  and  said,  "If  you  vote  prohi- 
bition this  coming  November,  I  shall  have  no  way  of  dis- 
posing of  my  packing  house  culls  and  my  weather  spoiled 
grapes,  from  which  at  the  present  time  I  derive  quite  a 
little  income."    The  old  aborigine. 

He  called  upon  us  to  rally  to  the  polls  and  save  his 
packing  house  culls  and  his  weather  spoiled  grapes. 
What  did  he  care  about  the  saloon  culls  and  Uquor  spoiled 

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The  Movement  Against  the  Saloon  and  Social  Progress 

homes?  Not  a  thing.  That  was  the  sort  of  argument 
that  was  used  here  in  the  State  of  California  to  pile  up  a 
majority  on  behalf  of  the  liquor  traffic  as  we  now  have  it 
in  our  commonwealth.  And  the  result  was  that  with 
organization,  with  the  accumulation  of  millions  of  profits, 
and  with  immigration — for  the  saloon  business  of  this 
country  has  been  tremendously  helped  by  immigration, 
they  stayed,  for  the  time,  the  tide  against  the  saloon. 
Between  the  years  1840  and  1860,  the  Germans  alone 
came  to  the  number  of  over  three  million,  and  with  their 
coming  the  manufacture  of  beer  became  one  of  the  great 
industries  of  America.  And  all  this  was  helped  by  the 
new  methods  of  doing  business ;  the  trust  method,  and  so 
on.    And  that  is  what  we  have  been  up  against. 

The  American  people  have  never  yet  had  conscience 
enough  to  deal  with  a  great  moral  question  as  it  should 
be  dealt  with,  simply  because  it  is  right.  Let  me  repeat; 
I  say  you  can't  show  me  an  instance  in  the  history  of  the 
United  States  where  the  American  people  have  done 
right  simply  because  it  is  right.  Do  you  think  of  any 
particular  instance?  I  made  that  statement  once,  and 
somebody  piped  up,  "We  aboHshed  slavery,  didn't  we?" 
Every  time  that  we  dealt  with  that  subject  we  juggled  and 
temporized  with  it.  We  began  in  the  old  colonial  days ; 
Madison  was  the  chief  juggler.  We  juggled  again  at  the 
Constitutional  Convention.  Those  men  knew  that  we 
were  dealing  with  an  evil,  and  I  am  glad  that  some  of  the 
greatest  speeches  against  the  institution  of  slavery  were 
made  in  that  convention,  and  were  made  by  representa- 
tives from  the  South.  But  that  document  had  to  be  a 
compromise,  and  it  wasn't  even  a  brand  new  compromise. 
Five  negroes  were  to  be  counted  as  three  white  men  for 
purposes  of  representation.  They  added  as  an  amend- 
ment the  stoppage  of  the  African  slave  trade  in  twenty 

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Addresses  World's  Social  Progress  Congress 

years.  They  were,  no  doubt,  jubilant  over  that;  but  you 
can  never  settle  any  question  definitely  and  finally  until 
it  is  settled  right.  It  wasn't  very  long  before  the  old 
ghost  was  walking  again.  Then  came  1820,  and  Henry 
Clay,  and  the  Missouri  Compromise.  There  was  to  be  no 
slavery  north  of  the  thirty-sixth  degree,  except  in  the 
State  of  Missouri.  Clay  had  his  eye  on  the  Presidential 
chair,  and  probably  they  had  another  jubilation.  But 
you  never  settle  any  question  until  you  settle  it  right. 

Then  what  happened?  The  ghost  still  walked;  the 
trouble  became  more  acute.  Then  came  the  year  1854, 
and  the  repeal  of  the  Missouri  Compromise  and  squatter 
sovereignty ;  what  we  would  call  local  option  on  the  sub- 
ject of  slavery  in  the  new  territory  of  Kansas  and  Ne- 
braska. The  bill  passed,  and  they  thought  they  had  settled 
it  again  by  that  compromise.  Every  time  we  dealt  with 
that  question,  we  compromised  and  juggled. 

Then  came  the  shock  of  civil  war;  the  greatest  con- 
flict that  up  to  that  time  this  blood-stained  planet  of  ours 
had  ever  known.  And  the  great  question  at  the  beginning 
of  that  war  was  whether  we  should  save  the  Union,  and 
even  Lincoln  said  he  would  save  the  Union  with  slavery 
if  he  could,  without  it  if  he  must.  Then,  as  a  war  neces- 
sity, he  issued  the  Emancipation  Proclamation;  as  a  war 
measure,  to  cripple  the  South.  If  it  had  not  been  for  the 
war,  we  would  have  had  slavery  in  this  country  just  as 
black  and  as  damnable  as  ever.  I  judge  by  the  way  people 
deal  with  other  evils  like  the  saloon.  You  know  that  there 
were  whole  regiments  on  the  point  of  deserting  when  the 
Emancipation  Proclamation  was  issued;  they  said  they 
had  enlisted  to  save  the  Union,  not  to  save  the  niggers. 

Let  us  not  forget  history.  Anybody  would  think,  the 
way  we  talk  now,  that  we  had  had  a  great  revival  in 
Washington  then,  but  nothing  of  that  sort  happened.    We 

268 


The  Movement  Against  the  Saloon  and  Social  Progress 

were  fighting  for  our  lives,  and  we  were  ready  to  throw 
over  anything. 

Then  somebody  said  to  me  once,  "We  went  down  and 
helped  Cuba,  didn't  we?"  Didn't  we?  Cuba  lay  within 
seventy  miles  of  our  southern  boundary  all  the  years  of 
our  national  existence ;  there  was  hardly  a  breeze  that 
blew  over  that  beautiful  island  that  didn't  bring  a  call  for 
help;  and  we  did  nothing.  Once  in  a  while  some  patriot 
would  say  something  in  behalf  of  Cuba,  but  nothing  came 
of  it.  It  was  recommended  that  we  buy  Cuba,  but  we  did 
nothing.  Once  in  a  while  our  yellow  press  would  send 
a  reporter  down,  and  print  heart-rending  tales  of  distress ; 
but  we  did  nothing.  How  did  we  ever  come  to  do  any- 
thing? It  was  the  question  of  the  Maine.  Do  you  re- 
member the  beautiful.  Christian  cry  that  went  up  from 
one  end  of  the  United  States  to  the  other — "Remember 
the  Maine"?  It  was  a  yell  of  elemental  hate,  not  the 
conscience  of  the  American  people. 

Now,  my  friends,  the  closing  chapter  remains  to  be 
written.  It  will  be  the  story  of  the  final  overthrow  of  the 
liquor  traffic  in  this  American  Republic,  and  the  final  tri- 
umph of  the  forces  that  to-day  are  against  it.  It  will  not 
be  the  work  of  a  single  individual,  like  the  signing  of  the 
Emancipation  Proclamation ;  but  it  will  be  the  work  of  the 
sovereign  people  of  the  nation  at  the  ballot  box,  who  will 
declare  that  such  a  traffic  shall  not  be  permitted  by  law, 
but  shall  be  prohibited  by  law;  and  in  these  days,  when 
State  after  State  falls  into  the  prohibition  column,  headed 
by  gallant,  little  Maine ;  when  even  Congress  begins  to 
hear  the  voice  of  the  American  people  and  has  given  a 
majority  in  favor  of  a  prohibition  measure,  and  when 
every  outlook  is  bright  and  the  news  from  every  conflict 
brings  new  hope  to  the  people,  we  begin  to  believe  that 
we  stand  in  the  dawn  of  a  prohibition  day. 

269 


Chapter  XXI. 

THE  WOMAN'S  CHRISTIAN  TEMPERANCE 
UNION  AND  SOCIAL  PROGRESS. 

BY  MRS.  BRIDELLE  C.  H.  WASHBURN. 

I  am  sure  that  in  this  age  of  woman's  activity,  no  one 
will  question  woman's  place  in  social  progress.  I  have 
been  asked  to  speak  especially  for  the  organization  that  I 
represent,  the  Woman's  Christian  Temperance  Union; 
the  mission  which  it  fulfills  as  well  as  its  place  in  social 
progress. 

It  has  been  more  than  forty  years  since  a  strange  spirit 
fell  upon  the  women  of  our  land,  a  spirit  of  uprising  and 
going  forth,  and  simultaneously  it  fell  upon  the  women  of 
some  half-dozen  different  States  at  once.  Those  women, 
without  any  preconcerted  thought  or  action,  went  out 
against  an  established  custom  in  this  land ;  an  established 
business,  if  you  please,  the  organized  liquor  traffic.  These 
women  were  unorganized  and  unrecognized  officially,  po- 
litically, or  even  in  our  churches ;  but  because  of  the  bap- 
tism of  the  heavenly  spirit,  as  wonderful  in  many  of  its 
results  as  the  baptism  which  fell  upon  the  disciples  in  the 
day  of  Pentecost,  these  women,  after  going  before  God 
and  asking  his  leadership,  went  against  the  established 
liquor  business  of  this  nation.  Their  work  in  the  begin- 
ning was  simply  a  reformatory  one.  They  sought  to  lift 
up  men  and  boys  who  had  already  gone  down  under 
drink.  But  they  found  to  their  consternation  that  while 
they  were  getting  one  man  lifted  up,  a  hundred  men  were 
being  dragged  down ;  and  they  found  out  that  the  antag- 
onism of  the  liquor  men  themselves  was  great,  even 
against  this  work  of  reform.    This  movement  was  called 

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The  W.  C.  T.  U.  and  Social  Progress 

the  Woman's  Crusade,  and  women  went  forth  and 
pleaded  with  men  engaged  in  this  business  to  quit  the 
business,  and  upon  their  knees  in  the  saloons  of  the  coun- 
try, Hfted  up  their  voices  to  God  for  the  destruction  of 
this  tremendous  evil.  Their  power  was  great,  and  their 
prayer  was  heard,  many  of  the  saloons  were  closed,  hun- 
dreds of  towns  and  cities  closed  their  saloons  and  hun- 
dreds of  men  and  boys  were  lifted  up.  Then  the  saloon 
men  rallied,  and  said,  "What  have  we  been  doing,  letting 
a  little  handful  of  preaching,  fanatical  women  rob  us  of 
a  legal  industry  ?"  And  they  threw  open  the  saloon  doors, 
and  boasted  that  they  could  drag  down  and  destroy  all 
that  had  been  done  by  the  praying  women. 

So  then  the  women  had  learned  their  first  hard  lesson ; 
that  organized  evil  can  never  be  met  except  with  organ- 
ized opposition,  and. so  the  Woman's  Christian  Temper- 
ance Union  was  organized ;  and  since  that  time,  that  little 
handful  has  grown  to  be  a  vast  and  mighty  army,  more 
than  three  hundred  thousand  strong  in  our  own  land,  well 
organized,  well  disciplined,  well  led,  and  with  more  than 
forty  different  departments  of  work.  It  reaches  out  into 
every  avenue  of  reform,  and  there  is  no  vice  to-day  prey- 
ing upon  the  home  or  the  social  or  national  life  that  has 
not  long  since  been  interfered  with  by  this  tremendously 
powerful  organization  of  the  Christian  women  of  Amer- 
ica. 

We  found  that  it  was  not  enough  to  reform  people 
while  the  destroyer  was  uncontrolled.  We  first  tried  to 
get  hold  of  educational  organizations,  to  get  hold  of  the 
youth  and  the  children;  but  we  were  so  untaught  our- 
selves that  progress  was  slow.  Then  Mary  H.  Hunt,  of 
Boston,  stood  before  a  great  audience — and  she  was  a 
well-known  educationalist  and  splendid  philanthropist  of 
that  city — and  she  said,  *T  will  tell  you  what  we  must  do ; 

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Addresses  World's  Social  Progress  Congress 

we  must  champion  the  teaching  of  scientific  temperance 
truths  in  our  pubHc  schools,  where  our  twenty  milHon 
children  shall  be  taught  the  fundamental  truths  regarding 
the  effects  of  alcohol  on  the  human  system."  When  she 
said  that,  many,  even  among  the  friends  of  reform,  said, 
"You  cannot  do  it" ;  but  she  said,  "It  shall  be  done." 

That  became  the  work  of  our  national  organization, 
and  as  a  result  of  that  work,  in  every  State  of  the  Union 
and  in  all  the  territories,  scientific  temperance  instruction 
has  been  taught  in  our  public  schools  for  more  than 
twenty  years,  and  many  of  the  educators  and  reformers 
of  both  Europe  and  America  have  said  that  had  the  Wo- 
man's Christian  Temperance  Union  accomplished  nothing 
else  but  the  placing  of  this  teaching  in  the  pubHc  schools, 
it  would  have  done  more  than  had  ever  been  done  before. 
This  paved  the  way  for  the  final  aboHtion  of  the  Hquor 
traffic. 

We  found  that  our  girls  and  boys  were  unprotected  by 
law.  We  found  conditions  that  we  had  never  dreamed  of 
in  our  legislatures,  and  laws  upon  our  statute  books  that 
we  had  never  dreamed  were  there.  Neither  had  the  good 
men  of  this  country.  Do  you  know  that  the  Woma^i's 
Christian  Temperance  Union  of  California  was  the  first 
organization  that  made  a  systematic  effort  for  the  protec- 
tion of  the  girls  of  California?  Do  you  know  that  when 
our  State  organization  sent  their  legislative  representative 
to  Sacramento,  they  found  that  there  was  no  protection 
for  the  girl  in  the  State  of  California  after  she  had 
reached  the  age  of  ten  years  ?  When  we  found  that  out, 
our  women  really  thought  that  all  they  had  to  do  was  to 
present  the  matter  before  the  legislature  and  it  would  be 
righted  at  once.  But  they  had  to  fight  every  step  of  the 
way.  Public  sentiment  was  against  them.  There  was 
fear  and  alarm  among  the  members  of  the  legislature,  and 

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The  W.  C.  T.  U.  and  Social  Progress 

the  women  had  to  work  year  after  year  to  have  the  age 
of  consent  raised,  first  to  twelve  years,  then  to  fourteen, 
then  to  sixteen,  and  then  to  eighteen. 

We  found,  too,  that  compromise  with  the  Hquor  traffic 
always  meant  failure.  We  learned  by  careful  investiga- 
tion all  over  the  United  States  and  in  every  nation, 
that  the  higher  we  raised  the  liquor  license,  the  greater 
the  traffic.  We  found  that  the  whole  license  system  was 
wrong  in  theory  and  wrong  in  practice.  Why,  you  know 
that  women  are  not  called  very  good  financiers ;  they  are 
not  expected  to  use  very  much  judgment  regarding  these 
matters.  But,  friends,  they  soon  learned  this  one  thing; 
that  if  you  tax  a  man  five  hundred  dollars  for  the  priv- 
ilege of  selling  strong  drink  for  one  year,  he  is  duty 
bound  to  sell  five  hundred  dollars  more  drink  than  he 
would  have  to  sell  if  you  didn't  tax  him  a  cent.  We  soon 
found  that  high  licenses  increased  consumption  because 
of  the  increased  effort  to  sell  and  induce  consumption. 

So  we  began  to  work,  not  for  a  compromise  with  the 
liquor  traffic,  but  for  the  total  aboHtion  of  it.  This  is  to 
be  brought  about  by  permeating  society  everywhere,  get- 
ting into  our  pubHc  schools,  our  churches,  into  individual 
lives,  into  home  Hfe,  and  to  that  end  we  have  worked  per- 
sistently and  patiently  and  well. 

The  result  has  been  the  co-operation  of  all  good  men 
and  women  everywhere  in  securing  the  best  laws  for  the 
protection  of  our  homes  and  our  children  and  the  ad- 
vancement of  every  needed  reform  measure. 

The  work  was  a  wonderful  development  for  woman- 
hood itself.  I  believe  that  the  Woman's  Christian  Tem- 
perance Union,  an  organization  composed  entirely  of 
women,  has  done  more  to  develop  the  womanhood  of 
our  land  than  all  things  else  put  together.  Woman  was 
brought  face  to  face,  in  that  organization,  with  the  fact 

273 


Addresses  World's  Social  Progress  Congress 

that  she  had  a  personal  responsibility  to  God  and  an 
equally  personal  responsibility  to  her  fellow  man.  She 
found  herself;  and  so  in  this  organization . women  went 
to  work.  At  the  beginning  of  our  work  there  was  only 
one  State  in  the  Union  that  had  a  prohibitory  law,  and 
that  was  stalwart,  old  Maine  away  on  the  northeastern 
coast.  We  had  hardly  heard  of  its  law  or  of  its  work- 
ing; the  people  were  unfamiliar  with  it.  Nine-tenths  of 
the  people  didn't  know  there  was  such  a  law.  Then  began 
the  agitation  which  has  resulted,  as  you  know,  in  the  total 
abolition  of  the  sale  of  liquor  in  eighteen  States  of  this 
Union,  and  there  are  five  more  that  are  to  consider  the 
question  again  later  on.  So  you  see  that  there  are  eight- 
een that  have  already  voted  for  it,  and  five  more  which 
are  to  vote  in  1915  and  1916.  You  see  the  wonderful 
progress  that  has  been  made  against  the  liquor  traffic,  and 
not  only  against  the  liquor  traffic,  but  against  all  its  at- 
tendant vices  and  evils. 

As  Doctor  Gandier  has  told  you,  we  soon  learned  that  a 
large  per  cent  of  the  crime  committed  in  this  country  is 
due  to  the  liquor  traffic.  We  soon  learned  that  the  jails 
and  penitentiaries  and  poor-houses  are  being  crowded  to 
overflowing  because  of  the  curse  and  blight  of  the  liquor 
traffic.  I  want  to  say  right  here  that  the  Woman's  Chris- 
tian Temperance  Union,  from  its  very  inception,  has  al- 
ways stood  against  compromise  with  the  liquor  traffic. 
As  our  late  national  president,  Mrs.  Stephens,  said,  the 
Woman's  Christian  Temperance  Union  is  anti-saloon,  and 
not  only  that,  but  anti-brewery  and  anti-distillery,  and 
anti-the  whole  liquor  business;  and  that  is  what  the 
Woman's  Christian  Temperance  Union  has  stood  for 
from  the  very  inception,  and  it  still  stands  for  the  same 
principles. 

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The  W.  C.  T.  U.  and  Social  Progress 


i^' 


When,  as  an  organization,  we  have  tried  to  obtain  legis- 
lation which  we  have  desired,  we  have  never  been  dis- 
couraged by  apparent  defeat.  We  were  persistent  in  our 
efforts  until  we  gained  the  very  thing  that  we  desired. 
Never  once  in  the  history  of  the  Woman's  Christian 
Temperance  Union  has  it  ever  temporized  or  compro- 
mised with  the  thing  that  we  know  to  be  absolutely  wrong. 

The  leaders  in  this  reform  were  called  visionary.  Do 
you  know,  my  friends,  never  has  a  reform  been  accom- 
plished in  this  world  that  some  man  or  woman  wasn't  a 
man  or  woman  of  vision — not.  visionary,  but  men  and 
women  of  vision.  And  they  have  proved  themselves  to  be 
the  most  practical  men  and  women  in  the  world.  So  we 
have  stood  for  high  ideals  in  social  progress  and  reform 
all  these  years. 

Now,  friends,  we,  here  in  the  State  of  California, 
and  I  mean  especially  the  women  of  California,  what  are 
we  standing  for  in  the  State  of  California?  I  beheve  that 
the  women  of  California,  as  well  as  of  the  other  States  in 
the  Union,  stand  for  social  progress.  I  believe  that  woman 
is  the  natural  conservator  of  human  Hfe,  and  when- 
ever any  evil  confronts  the  home  as  a  destroyer,  woman's 
influence  is  against  that  evil,  whatever  it  may  be.  In  all 
history,  when  men  have  gone  out  to  war  and  have  slain 
each  other  in  battle,  woman  has  gone  to  care  for  the 
wounded,  and  has  brought  spices  to  embalm  the  dead. 
She  has  always  been  the  conservator  of  human  life.  Wom- 
an has  always  stood  against  that  which  detracts  from 
the  efficiency  of  the  boy  or  girl;  womanhood  has  always 
stood  against  that  which  detracts  from  the  safety  of  the 
home,  and  so  the  Woman's  Christian  Temperance  Union 
and  good  women  everywhere  stand  against  the  legalized 
liquor  traffic  and  all  its  attendant  evils. 

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Addresses  World's  Social  Progress  Congress 

I  want  to  say  just  a  word  for  one  of  the  latest  compila- 
tions on  this  question,  a  compendium  of  temperance  truth 
incorporating  the  teaching  that  is  being  given  in  the  pub- 
lic schools  of  our  land.  I  want  to  say  something  about 
the  use  of  alcohol  in  moderation.  We  find  that  the  main 
defense  of  the  liquor  traffic  is  made  on  this  basis.  The 
following  is  from  the  Saturday  Evening  Post : 

"The  following  incident  recently  occurred  in  New  York 
City  when  Mr.  George  Perkins,  of  the  New  York  Life 
Insurance  Company,  was  giving  a  dinner  to  the  directors 
of  the  big  New  York  life  insurance  companies,  and  when 
the  proprietor  of  the  hotel  handed  to  him  the  menu  for 
his  approval,  he  crossed  out  all  liquors,  including  all 
wines.  A  protest  was  made  against  this  omission,  and 
this  is  what  he  replied :  'We  discriminate  against  the  use 
of  these  by  our  policy  holders ;  it  is  but  fair  that  we  should 
abide  by  our  own  rule.*  " 

You  know  that  very  recently  liquors  have  been  declared 
against  by  the  heads  of  the  royal  families  in  Europe.  We 
know  that  King  George  has  declared  against  the  use  of 
intoxicating  liquors,  including  wine  and  beer,  and  that 
he  himself  has  become  a  total  abstainer,  and  uses  neither 
wine  nor  beer.  We  know  that  Kaiser  Wilhelm  has  de- 
clared against  the  use  of  intoxicating  liquor,  and  no 
longer  permits  it  to  be  served  in  the  royal  household ;  and 
this  includes  wine  and  beer.  If  wine  is  a  harmless  and 
safe  temperance  drink,  why  did  these  men,  with  their 
great  power  and  influence,  declare  against  their  use? 

I  have  a  great  deal  of  evidence  in  regard  to  the  mod- 
erate use  of  the  lighter  intoxicating  liquors  and  their  ef- 
fects, not  only  upon  the  human  system,  but  upon  crime 
and  inebriacy.  I  could  give  you  the  names  of  authorities 
on  this  subject  had  I  the  time,  men  well  known  in  the 
scientific  world,  who  declare  that  the  continual  use  of 

276 


The  W.  C.  T.  U.  and  Social  Progress 

these  milder  liquors  is  really  of  greater  damage  to  the  hu- 
man race  than  the  spasmodic  use  of  the  stronger  spirits, 
for  the  reason  that  their  continuous  use  brings  about  a 
sort  of  deterioration  of  the  human  system,  and  creates  a 
like  deterioration  of  the  moral  forces,  and  they  are,  there- 
fore, dangerous. 

I  want  to  refer  for  just  a  moment  to  the  connection 
between  drink  and  crime.  Lord  Kitchener  said  that  in 
India,  with  a  diminution  of  drinking,  the  number  of 
court  martials  was  reduced,  and  that  in  India,  in  1907, 
there  had  not  been  a  single  court  martial  of  a  total  ab- 
stainer. In  the  British  postal  service  there  are  more 
than  thirty-one  thousand  men.  They  are  men  who  must 
be  keen  and  alert,  and  no  man  with  his  brains  befogged 
by  any  amount  of  alcohol  can  remain  in  the  service.  In 
1907-8-9,  the  number  of  dismissals  for  intemperance  was 
thirty-six  per  cent  of  the  total  number  of  dismissals. 

What  do  the  prisons  reveal?  The  late  Colonel  Mc- 
Hardin,  chairman  of  the  Prison  Commission,  said  that  he 
did  not  know  of  anything  that  could  take  the  place  of 
strong  drink  as  a  crime-producer.  Sixty  per  cent  of  the 
long-sentence  criminals  had  been  drinking  before  the 
commission  of  the  crime,  and  were  somewhat  affected  by 
it  at  the  time  the  crime  was  committed.  One  investigation 
showed  that  something  like  seventy-six  per  cent  of  the 
criminals  had  been  more  or  less  under  the  influence  of 
alcohol  at  the  time  that  they  committed  the  crimes  for 
which  they  were  imprisoned. 

I  might  go  on  and  on,  but  what  is  the  use?  We  all 
know  the  connection  between  the  liquor  traffic  and  the 
courts.  We  all  know,  through  the  systematic  and  deter- 
mined investigation  of  the  Woman's  Christian  Temper- 
ance Union,  that  the  tax-payers  of  this  country  are  being 
burdened  by  taxes  caused  by  the  tremendous  amount  of 

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Addresses  World's  Social  Progress  Congress 

crime  and  pauperism  produced  by  the  awful  curse  of 
drink. 

I  must  close,  though  I  might  go  on  much  longer.  I 
hope  you  all  understand  what  our  organization  stands  for. 
It  has  grown  in  influence  and  effectiveness  from  a  little 
handful  of  unrecognized  women  to  a  mighty  power. 
There  is  not  a  single  State  legislature  that  has  not  long 
since  felt  the  weight  of  the  hand  of  the  Woman's  Giris- 
tian  Temperance  Union.  I  wish,  when  you  get  to  the  fair 
grounds  over  here,  that  you  would  visit  our  national  ex- 
hibit, in  the  Educational  Building,  and  you  will  find  on 
exhibit  there  some  of  the  facts  which  we  have  discovered 
as  the  result  of  these  long  years  of  study.  And  you  will 
find  there  one  of  the  most  unique  exhibits  on  the  expo- 
sition ground,  a  petition  written  by  Frances  E.  Willard 
years  ago  and  circulated  in  every  civilized  country  in  the 
world,  with  the  signatures  of  millions.  There  is  about  a 
mile  and  a  half  of  canvas  required  to  record  these  names, 
and  you  will  see  the  different  rolls  of  this  canvas  from 
each  nation.  And  this  petition  asks  every  government  in 
the  world  to  abolish  the  liquor  traffic.  The  interest 
aroused  by  that  petition  has  never  ceased,  from  that  day 
to  this.  I  hope  that  you  will  go  and  look  at  that  unique 
exhibit  that  our  national  organization  has  so  kindly  sent 
to  the  exposition. 

I  might,  indeed,  well  take  much  of  the  afternoon,  and 
should  have  been  obliged  to  do  so  had  I  prepared  half 
of  what  might  be  said  as  to  the  place  of  woman  in  social 
progress.  I  have  only  touched  upon  the  effect  of  the 
Woman's  Christian  Temperance  Union  on  social  prog- 
ress, and  I  hope  that  you  will  all  remember  that  this  or- 
ganization, composed  of  the  consecrated  womanhood  of 
this  nation,  stands  against  everything  that  threatens  the 
home,   that  threatens   your   children;   it   stands   against 

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The  W.  C.  T.  U.  and  Social  Progress 

everything  that  threatens  your  public  schools  and  the 
morals  of  the  people  in  general;  and  we  stand  ready  to 
co-operate  with  all  good  men  and  women  of  all  organ- 
izations or  any  organization  for  the  overthrow  of  the 
hquor  traffic  and  its  attendant  evils,  and  for  every  reform 
for  the  betterment  of  the  hum.an  race  and  the  advance- 
ment of  social  progress. 


279 


Chapter  XXIL 

SIDE  LIGHTS  ON  THE  MOVEMENT  AGAINST 
THE  SALOON. 

BY  GUY  WADSWORTH. 

I  want  to  tell  you  about  a  little  trip  that  I  made  to 
Utah  in  the  interest  of  prohibition.  I  was  invited  to  go 
into  the  State  during  the  latter  part  of  February,  to  help 
in  the  campaign.  The  legislature  had  determined  to  pass 
a  statutory  prohibition  bill.  I  spoke  in  a  dozen  or  more 
different  towns  in  Utah,  in  two  or  three  Mormon  taber- 
nacles, was  in  one  place  introduced  by  a  Mormon,  spoke 
in  many  Mormon  churches,  and  I  was  fully  convinced  that 
the  rank  and  file  of  the  voters  in  Utah  were  in  favor  of 
State-wide  prohibition.  I  was  present  at  a  meeting  of  the 
legislature.  The  senate  had  already  voted,  and  the  as- 
sembly considered  the  bill  the  day  I  was  there,  and  I 
heard  a  very  interesting  and  illuminating  debate.  They 
tried,  as  they  generally  do,  to  kill  the  bill,  to  make  it 
ridiculous  by  all  kinds  of  amendments;  but  the  temper- 
ance people  were  able  to  vote  all  the  amendments  down. 
I  was  impressed  by  the  amendment  one  man  offered, 
which  dealt  with  the  subject  of  compensating  the  liquor 
dealers  of  the  State.  He  read  a  very  well  drawn  up 
amendment  and  argued  on  that  side  of  the  question;  but 
when  he  had  finished,  one  of  the  members  rose  and  said, 
"Mr.  Speaker,  I  believe  there  are  some  good  things  in  that 
bill,  but  I  think  I  can  change  it  to  make  it  better  still."  He 
moved,  as  an  amendment,  that  right  after  a  certain  word 
in  the  original  amendment,  these  words  should  be  added, 
"That   whenever  the  liquor   dealers   should   have   com- 

280 


Side  Lights  on  the  Movement  Against  the  Saloon 

pensated  the  widows  and  the  insane  and  the  paupers  and 
the  other  unfortunates  who  had  suffered  through  the 
liquor  business,"  then  he  was  in  favor  of  compensating 
the  Hquor  men.  The  result  of  that  amendment  was  that 
when  the  original  amendment  to  compensate  was  put  to 
a  vote,  I  don't  think  even  the  man  who  had  proposed  it, 
voted  for  it ;  not  a  sound  did  I  hear.  But  every  one  ap- 
parently voted,  No.  So  all  the  amendments  were  voted 
down,  and  finally,  about  six  o'clock  at  night,  they  passed 
the  bill,  forty  to  five.  It  looked  very  much  like  prohibition 
in  Utah.  Then,  two  days  later,  the  senate  concurred  a 
little  amendment  having  been  made,  by  a  vote  of  sixteen 
to  two.  So  unless  my  mathematics  are  crooked,  it  was 
an  eight-to-one  vote  both  in  the  senate  and  in  the  as- 
sembly, and  people  felt  joyful  all  over  the  State.  The 
very  day  that  this  bill  passed  the  assembly.  Governor 
Alexander  of  Idaho  had  signed  the  bill  for  prohibition 
in  that  State,  so  apparently  everything  was  looking  fine. 
The  governor  had  agreed  to  consider  the  question,  and 
give  his  decision  in  plenty  of  time;  but  you  remember 
what  he  did.  He  waited  until  it  was  too  late  for  the  legis- 
lature to  pass  the  bill  over  his  veto,  and  then  vetoed  it; 
and  he  did  a  worse  thing  still.  The  people  had  depended 
upon  the  statutory  prohibition  as  a  temporary  makeshift. 
They  had  an  initiative  and  referendum  bill  to  enable 
them  to  initiate  a  constitutional  prohibition  amendment 
for  the  State  of  Utah.  The  governor  knew  about  that, 
and  about  the  last  thing  he  did  was  to  veto  the  initiative 
and  referendum  bill,  which  would  have  enabled  them  to 
initiate  a  constitutional  prohibition  amendment  for  the 
State  of  Utah.  He  said  that  he  had  received  all  the  hon- 
ors from  the  State  of  Utah  he  expected,  and  that  here- 
after he  was  going  to  devote  his  attention  to  other  things. 

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Addresses  World's  Social  Progress  Congress 

I  think  he  probably  will,  for  the  people  in  Utah  are  very- 
indignant. 

Now,  as  to  Idaho ;  you  see,  I  have  forty-eight  States 
to  talk  about,  so  I  can  go  on  for  a  considerable  time,  if 
necessary.  The  history  of  the  movement  in  Idaho  is  very 
interesting.  You  remember  that  the  thirtieth  day  of  last 
June  the  Democratic  party,  and  the  Progressive  and  Re- 
publican parties  in  Idaho,  all  three,  vied  with  one  an- 
other to  see  which  would  be  the  quickest  to  get  a  prohi- 
bition plank  in  the  platform;  and  they  all  voted  it  in. 
So  when  the  legislature  met  this  winter,  they  passed  an 
enabling  act,  so  that  they  can  vote  on  constitutional  pro- 
hibition in  Idaho,  in  1916.  But  the  victory  in  Washing- 
ton and  Oregon,  both  of  which  States  border  on  Idaho, 
gave  the  Idaho  people  the  idea  that  it  would  be  best  for 
them  to  pass  a  statutory  prohibition  bill  which  would  go 
into  effect,  January  1,  1916,  in  order  that  when  pro- 
hibition went  into  effect  that  day  in  Washington  and 
Oregon,  Idaho  should  not  immediately  become  the  dump- 
ing-ground for  those  States.  So  that  is  what  they  did, 
and  the  very  day  that  I  was  in  the  assembly  in  Utah, 
Governor  Alexander  signed  the  bill  which  caused  Idaho 
to  become  a  prohibition  State  by  statute. 

There  are  people  all  over  the  country,  who,  if  they 
were  asked  how  many  prohibition  States  there  are,  would 
make  a  wild  guess.  I  was  making  a  speech  in  the  Sunday 
school  at  Long  Beach,  and  I  asked  the  people  in  the  Sun- 
day school  to  tell  me  how  many  States  in  the  Union  had 
voted  dry,  and  the  superintendent  said,  nine.  I  had  to  let 
him  down  easy,  but  I  had  to  tell  him  before  I  got  through, 
that  he  was  a  Httle  out  of  date ;  that  since  September  22, 
ten  States  had  voted  dry,  and  in  every  case  the  law  will 
go  into  effect,  except  in  Utah.  In  Utah  the  people  are 
just  simply  mad,  in  the  American  sense  of  that  word; 

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Side  Lights  on  the  Movement  Against  the  Saloon 

but  it  is  only  a  matter  of  two  years.  They  are  absolutely 
helpless  at  present ;  they  can't  get  an  election  until  after 
November  1,  1916.  But  I  want  to  ask  you  people  to 
watch  when  Utah  votes  the  next  time. 

I  am  planning  to  leave  to-morrow  night  for  Oregon  and 
Washington,  to  learn  as  many  lessons  as  I  can  up  there 
for  our  next  campaign  in  California.  Surely  California 
can't  afford  to  be  behind  Oregon  and  Washington  in  its 
power  to  attract  the  finest  people  of  America.  When  the 
entire  Pacific  Coast  is  dry,  where,  under  the  shining  sun, 
will  you  find  anything  like  these  three  Pacific  Coast 
States? 


283 


Chapter  XXIII. 

THE  TRIUMPH  OF  THE  "DRY,"  AND  SOCIAL 
PROGRESS. 

BY  A.    J.   WALLACE. 

I  arrived  in  California  on  a  certain  Friday  night,  and 
on  the  following  Sunday  evening  spoke  at  a  union  meet- 
ing for  the  W.  C.  T.  U.,  so  I  began  life  in  California  very 
fairly.  I  thought  then  that  the  W.  C.  T.  U.  was  an  or- 
ganization that  would  not  only  accomplish  a  great  deal, 
but  that  it  was  on  a  firm  foundation  and  was  building  for 
permanency;  but  in  these  later  days  I  find  that  there  are 
influences  digging  at  the  very  foundation  of  that  organ- 
ization and  planning  its  overthrow,  for  I  see  nothing  for 
the  W.  C.  T.  U.  to  do  in  California  after  things  have 
moved  as  rapidly  for  the  next  two  or  three  years  as  they 
have  in  the  last  six  months.  For  when  the  liquor  business 
is  overthrown,  what  on  earth  is  that  organization  going 
to  do?  As  I  told  Mrs.  Washburn,  her  organization  was 
doomed  to  overthrow;  but  she  insisted  that  there  would 
be  some  good  things  to  do  even  then. 

A  long  time  ago  on  the  banks  of  the  Red  River  a  few 
of  us  were  living,  and  my  brother  and  I  were  conducting 
a  store.  We  put  up  a  building  and  got  a  man  to  advance 
a  sum  to  run  the  business,  and  a  little  while  after  we 
were  established,  somebody  wanted  to  bring  a  saloon  in. 
And  I  tried  to  convince  that  little  community,  going  out 
among  the  farms  and  getting  up  a  petition,  that  a  saloon 
shouldn't  be  allowed.  When  the  man  who  provided  the 
funds  to  stock  our  store  learned  what  I  was  doing,  he  said 
to  me  in  a  very  gracious  and  nice  way,  "Now,  Mr.  Wal- 

284 


The  Triumph  of  the  "Dry"  and  Social  Progress 

lace,  of  course  that  business  is  right  in  your  hands,  and 
you  will  have  to  be  the  judge  of  what  you  do ;  but  I  would 
like  to  suggest  to  you  that  in  business  it  is  a  good  thing 
to  let  liquor  matters  alone."  He  took  the  position  that 
so  many  men  have  taken  ever  since,  that  it  isn't  good 
policy  to  interfere  with  the  liquor  business  if  you  want  to 
succeed  in  your  own  business. 

I  remember  in  that  little  town  the  next  year  we  were 
all  gathered  in  our  little  schoolhouse,  and  the  predom- 
inant question  was  that  of  liquor.  If  you  have  ever  Hved 
in  a  small  neighborhood,  you  know  how  it  is ;  how  won- 
derfully intense  you  can  get.  We  forgot  all  the  rest  of 
the  world,  and  never  in  a  big  city  have  I  seen  such  ex- 
citement as  in  that  little  schoolhouse.  I  remember  that 
a  big  man,  white  with  anger,  invited  me  to  go  outside.  I 
didn't  go;  I  stayed  right  there  in  that  institution  of  pub- 
lic instruction.  He  was  bigger  than  I,  and  it  was  really 
a  cold  winter's  day ;  besides,  he  had  three  or  four  brothers 
right  there  who  had  come  originally  from  the  lumber 
camps,  and  I  kept  on  staying  where  I  was. 

But  things  changed  by  and  by.  North  Dakota  got  the 
notion  that  liquor  didn't  help,  and  I  remember  sending 
back  a  contribution — a  small  one — to  help  make  the  fight 
against  liquor.  And  about  a  year  ago,  in  the  absence  of 
the  governor,  it  came  to  me  to  welcome  the  representatives 
of  North  Dakota  at  the  time  that  they  selected  the  site 
for  their  State  building  at  the  Panama-Pacific  Exposition. 
I  listened  with  unusual  interest  to  what  these  representa- 
tives had  to  say,  because  they  came  from  my  old  home 
State,  and  one  of  them  said,  "North  Dakota  has  the  high- 
est standing  for  pro  rata  wealth  of  any  State  in  the 
Union."  He  didn't  say  that  North  Dakota  was  the  wealth- 
iest State;  but  he  did  say  that  the  average  of  wealth  in 
that  State,  that  had  been  without  liquor  for  a  long  time, 

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Addresses  World's  Social  Progress  Congress 

was  the  greatest  of  any  State  in  the  Union ;  and  I  rejoiced 
in  that  fact.  I  remember  in  the  very  early  days  that  one 
of  the  first  things  we  did  was  to  build  a  court  house  and 
jail,  and  we  were  all  taxed  for  it.  Do  you  know  I  heard 
lately  that  there  is  nobody  to  occupy  that  jail  and  court- 
house that  we  helped  to  build.  You  can  tell  what  the  rea- 
son is.  Mr.  Gandier  told  you  of  a  county  in  this  State  of 
which  one-eighth  was  wet,  and  that  wet  part  contributed 
six  times  as  many  prisoners  to  the  county  jail  as  all  the 
rest  of  the  county.  That  is  the  way  it  was  with  this 
county  in  North  Dakota. 

I  wish  I  could  sing  a  paean  of  triumph  for  the  things 
that  have  been  accomplished  in  these  last  few  months 
and  years  in  this  cause  for  which  we  stand.  At  the  be- 
ginning of  things  there  was  old  Neal  Dow  in  Maine ;  and 
if  that  old  man  could  have  lived  a  little  longer  on  this 
earth,  how  triumphant  his  closing  days  would  have  been. 

I  don't  know  how  soon  we  are  going  to  have  our  final 
triumph;  I  am  no  prophet.  But  I  am  almost  taken  off 
my  feet  in  these  late  months  by  the  way  things  are  going. 
It  took  a  long  time  to  win  two  or  three  States ;  but  what 
has  happened  since?  Why,  last  fall  all  over  this  country 
we  had  campaigns.  As  usual,  we  were  told  we  were  fool- 
ish. What  happened  ?  Why,  five  States  went  dry  in  No- 
vember. Then  we  rested  a  little,  and  before  we  knew  it, 
the  legislatures  were  in  session  in  January,  and  it  ap- 
peared that  not  only  by  the  vote  of  the  people,  but  by 
legislative  action  the  same  thing  could  be  done.  And  in  a 
very  short  time  in  1915,  five  more  States,  through  their 
legislatures,  went  dry,  and  the  governors  of  four  of  them 
signed  the  bill.  One  of  the  governors  thought  he  could 
stay  the  wheels  of  progress,  but  he  will  fail  as  absolutely 
as  did  King  Canute,  and  we  will  make  Utah  dry. 

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The  Triumph  of  the  ''Dry'  and  Social  Progress 

I  am  wondering  how  these  men  feel  who  have  always 
sneered  at  our  forces  and  told  us  that  we  were  fanatics ; 
that  we  ought  to  wear  skirts,  and  didn't  belong  among 
real  men.  I  wonder  what  they  thought  a  few  months  ago 
when  the  question  came  up  in  Washington,  and  a  ma- 
jority— not  two-thirds,  but  still  a  majority — of  the  mem- 
bers of  Congress  cast  their  vote  in  favor  of  submitting 
to  the  people  of  this  country  the  question  of  national  pro- 
hibition. 

That  means  not  local,  but  national  prohibition  for  this 
great  country  of  ours ;  and  every  distiller  and  every 
brewer  and  every  saloon  man  and  Royal  Arch  man  in  the 
whole  country  knew  when  he  read  that  vote  that  he  had 
come  pretty  near  the  end  of  his  rope,  and  that  some  day 
there  would  be  a  two-thirds  majority  and  the  question 
would  go  to  the  people,  and  that  will  mean  the  end  of 
the  liquor  business  all  over  the  country. 

I  am  not  going  to  make  a  speech ;  but  only  rejoice  with 
you  in  things  done,  and  take  comfort  and  courage  in 
starting  afresh  to  do  the  things  that  remain  to  be  done. 
I  can't  understand  some  things.  The  progress  is  such 
that  it  is  really  exciting.  I  don't  know  what  they  are  go- 
ing to  do  in  Europe.  I  am  sure  that  old  England  will  be 
doomed  if  beer  and  stout  and  ale  no  longer  give  strength 
to  her  population !  What  on  earth  can  England  do  with- 
out beer,  after  a  thousand  years?  It  would  seem  to  be 
an  impossibility.  My  father  taught  me  not  to  swear ;  but 
I  believe  to-day  he  would  let  me  say,  "By  George,  Eng- 
land's going  dry,"  when  he  saw  Lloyd  George  and  King 
George  coming  out  against  liquor. 

Lloyd  George  said,  on  March  2,  that  liquor  was  doing 
more  to  destroy  the  EngHsh  population  than  all  the  Ger- 
man submarines  in  existence.  He  Hved  twenty-nine  days 
longer,  and  then  he  spoke  again,  and  he  said,  **' England 

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Addresses  World's  Social  Progress  Congress 

has  three  great  foes :  Germany,  Austria,  and  liquor,  and 
the  greatest  of  these  is  Hquor."  I  believe  in  God ;  I  be- 
lieve he  cares  for  his  people.  He  never  sleeps  nor  for- 
gets any  man  or  any  nation;  and  standing  as  a  finite 
human  in  awe  and  amazement  at  the  horrors  of  Europe, 
I  am  unable  to  comprehend  or  see  any  right  at  all,  as  I 
think  of  what  is  going  on  there;  but  there  have  come 
gleams  of  light  from  somewhere  in  these  later  days,  and 
I  am  wondering  if  the  Almighty,  hopeless  and  almost 
despairing  of  his  children,  is  allowing  the  destroying 
armies  to  ravage  the  country  in  order  to  teach  them  that 
there  is  a  greater  evil  than  war,  and  that  is  liquor;  and 
teach  them  that  they  must  give  up  their  dependence  on 
Hquor  and  crush  the  liquor  business  and  so,  out  of  the 
horrors  of  this  bloody  warfare  may  come  this  reforma- 
tion of  the  Hquor  traffic,  this  overcoming  of  things  evil, 
and  the  freeing  of  the  various  peoples  of  the  whole  world. 
Think  of  Russia,  half-civilized  Russia !  Have  you  ever 
pondered  the  Russian  serf,  and  read  about  him?  You 
know  what  a  poor,  narrow  life  he  Hves.  Go  and  hear  the 
woman  who  spoke  in  this  building  yesterday,  Mary  Antin ; 
let  her  tell  her  story  of  Russian  life.  Think  of  what  you 
have  read  and  what  you  know,  and  remember  that  in  that 
cold  region  live  men  of  narrowed  lives  and  restricted  out- 
look, and  in  their  ignorance  they  have  naturally  depended 
upon  vodka,  and  vodka  has  made  them  stupid  and  be- 
fogged and  dull.  What  has  happened?  You  couldn't 
have  dreamed  it  in  your  wildest  dreams ;  it  wouldn't  have 
occurred  to  you  that  it  could  have  been  accomplished  in 
a  century ;  yet  in  the  last  six  months  they  tell  us  that  the 
use  of  liquor  has  been  forbidden  in  Russia.  It  seems  im- 
possible, yet  from  governmental  reports,  from  the  report 
of  the  Minister  of  Finance  of  Russia,  we  are  told  that 
already  Russia  is  tremendously  the  gainer.    The  Minister 

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The  Triumph  of  the  ''Dry^'  and  Social  Progress 

of  Finance  reports  that  they  have  lost  two  hundred  and 
thirty-five  milHon  dollars  by  giving  up  this  Hquor  traffic; 
but  he  goes  on  to  say  that  the  real  gain  is  great ;  the  ad- 
vance in  the  people  is  marvelous;  that  there  are  benefits 
is  apparent  on  every  hand. 

A  writer  in  one  of  our  trade  organs  has  said  just 
recently  that  he  had  had  a  conversation  with  a  banker 
from  Russia,  and  this  banker  was  interested  in  the  coal 
mines,  and  his  companies  lost  sixty  per  cent  of  their 
men  to  the  army;  then  they  employed  other  men  until 
they  had  fifty  per  cent  of  their  former  force;  but  the 
use  of  liquor  was  stopped ;  it  was  given  up  entirely,  and 
the  result  was  that  with  only  fifty  per  cent  of  their  nor- 
mal number  of  employees  they  were  doing  forty  per  cent 
more  work  than  they  ever  did  before. 

The  women  of  the  W.  C.  T.  U.,  and  men  like  Doctor 
Gaudier  and  others  have  gone  all  through  the  country 
trying  to  stop  the  drink  business,  not  wholly  from  a  moral 
viewpoint,  nor  even  from  a  commercial  and  business 
standpoint,  but  because  drink  is  destroying  the  manhood 
of  our  men  and  destroying  the  women,  and  making  men 
and  women  by  the  million  inefficient ;  and  then  here  comes 
this  instance  of  the  greater  efficiency  in  the  men,  the  great 
material  gain,  simply  because  they  have  given  up  liquor 
drinking,  and  have  thus  become  more  skillful  and  indus- 
trious. 

We  know  what  the  evil  effect  of  drinking  is  upon  the 
American ;  but  we  never  drank  quite  as  the  Russians  did. 
Yet  out  of  the  war,  in  just  these  few  months,  has  come 
this  great  redemption  for  Russia. 

You  know  what  France  has  done.  An  actor  once  said 
that  if  the  United  States  went  dry,  half  the  population 
would  move  away  and  go  to  France,  where  they  could 
have  freedom.     Now,  there  isn't  very  much  freedom  of 

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Addresses  World's  Social  Progress  Congress 

that  kind  even  in  France.  I  am  afraid  that  poor  actor 
will  have  to  stay  in  the  United  States  even  after  we  do 
go  dry. 

All  these  great  men  in  England,  Kitchener,  and  Lloyd 
George,  and  the  king,  have  given  orders  that  no  liquor 
of  any  kind  is  to  be  used  in  their  houses  during  the  war. 
After  the  war  is  over,  will  they  go  back  to  the  good,  old 
times?  What  could  they  say  for  themselves  if  they 
did?  They  can't  do  it.  King  George  has  given  orders 
that  no  wine  is  to  be  used  in  his  household  during  the 
war.  King  George  would  stand  pilloried  before  the 
people  of  the  world  if,  after  the  war,  he  should  go  back 
to  the  drink  habit  in  his  household.  He  dare  not  do  it. 
He  comes  of  too  good  a  stock;  he  is  the  grandson  of  too 
fine  a  woman  to  do  such  a  thing. 

I  heard  Lloyd  George  talk  in  the  House  of  Commons 
three  or  four  years  ago,  and  I  want  to  tell  you  that  for 
years  I  had  spoken  of  him  before  audiences  as  one  of  the 
two  or  three  biggest  men  in  the  world,  because  of  what 
I  knew  of  what  he  was  doing  for  humanity.  I  heard  him 
talk  on  his  insurance  bill,  when  they  were  all  trying  to 
pull  it  to  pieces,  and  he  explained  that  bill  as  simply  and 
clearly  as  though  they  had  been  school  children;  and  it 
was  so  plain,  that  only  those  who  were  determined  to 
take  the  other  view  could  think  otherwise  than  as  he 
thought.  That  is  the  kind  of  man,  the  biggest  man  in  the 
country,  who  is  trying  to  get  King  George  and  Kitchener 
to  agree  to  actual  prohibition  in  the  British  Empire.  It  is 
a  great  day  for  the  world  when  such  a  man  is  in  power 
in  such  a  country. 

Saskatchewan  has  ordered  the  bars  closed,  and  in  Can- 
ada the  Parliament  meets  in  a  little  while,  and  the  ques- 
tion is  going  to  come  up  before  them  when  they  meet; 
and  knowing,  as  I  do,  how  loyal  they  are  to  the  British 

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The  Triumph  of  the  ''Dry"  and  Social  Progress 

Empire,  I  believe  they  will  readily  adopt  in  Canada  the 
principles  adopted  across  the  sea. 

Some  years  ago,  when  I  was  in  England,  I  went  to  a 
great  Handel  festival  in  the  Crystal  Palace.  There  was 
a  magnificent  chorus  of  four  thousand  voices  and  five 
hundred  instruments.  I  have  never  heard  anything  like 
it.  They  gave  us  ''J^^^s  Maccabseus" ;  and  the  music, 
representing  his  triumphant  return,  after  the  overthrow 
of  his  enemies,  rang  out  magnificently.  And  I  am  here 
to  say  to  you  to-day  that  it  is  time  for  us  to  get  out  the 
musical  instruments,  and  raise  our  voices,  and  we  will 
sing  together  a  song  of  triumph,  such  as  Miriam  sang, 
when  the  Royal  Arch  people  of  that  day,  who  wanted  to 
enslave  the  Israelites,  were  overthrown — and  that  was  a 
cold-water  victory  even  on  that  occasion.  We  will  sing, 
and  they  will  hear  our  song  all  over  the  world.  We  will 
shout  from  the  peaks  of  the  Sierras  to  the  watchers  on 
the  tallest  pines  of  old  Maine,  and  a  score  of  interior 
States  will  catch  the  melody,  and  mountain  and  sea  shall 
give  volume  and  resonance  to  the  song,  and  the  heavens 
and  the  earth  shall  unite  in  the  chorus  of  old  "Jehovah 
has  triumphed ;  his  people  are  free." 


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Chapter  XXIV. 

FAIR  LEGISLATION  AND  THE  LIQUOR 
TRAFFIC. 

BY  D.   M.  GANDIER. 

There  are  one  or  two  things  to  which  my  attention  has 
been  called  lately,  to  which  I  would  like  to  call  your  at- 
tention. I  don't  know  when  I  have  heard  so  much  talk 
about  the  necessity  of  being  fair  in  legislation  against  the 
liquor  traffic  as  I  have  heard  in  the  last  four  months,  par- 
ticularly the  last  three  months.  I  believe  that  all  legisla- 
tion should  be  fair.  I  have,  however,  no  particular  inter- 
est about  being  fair  to  the  saloon.  I  don't  know  that  the 
word  "fair"  has  any  application  except  to  people.  We 
ought  to  be  fair  to  the  saloon-keeper,  but  we  ought  also  to 
be  fair  to  all  the  people  of  the  State.  And  when  we  think 
of  this  question  of  what  legislation  is  fair  and  what  is  not 
fair,  we  have  got  to  be  careful  if  we  don't  get  our  thinking 
mixed.  I  would  like  to  think  of  the  saloon,  in  its  relation 
to  the  democracy,  in  order  that  I  may  know  what  legis- 
lation is  right  and  what  not. 

We  have  what  we  call  a  local  option  law.  I  don't  like 
the  word  ''local  option,"  because  I  have  never  believed  in 
local  option  in  the  usual  sense  of  that  word.  I  am  a  thor- 
ough democrat.  I  believe  in  the  right  of  every  individual 
and  community  to  govern  itself  in  all  things  that  do  not 
hurt  the  larger  community.  Democracy  means  that  the 
worth  of  every  individual  is  recognized  and  that  we  are 
not  going  to  interfere  with  personal  liberty  except  when 
it  is  necessary  to  maintain  the  higher  civil  liberty.  I  have 
a  right  to  do  as  I  please  so  far  as  government  is  con- 

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Fair  Legislation  and  the  Liquor  Traffic 

cerned,  if  what  I  please  does  not  hurt  any  one  else.  But 
the  moment  what  I  please  to  do  hurts  you,  your  rights 
must  be  considered  as  well  as  mine,  and  then  my  per- 
sonal liberty  yields  to  the  higher  civil  liberty,  and  I  am 
willing  that  government  should  come  in  and  say,  "You 
shall  so  live  together  that  you  shall  not  hurt  one  another." 

So  my  personal  liberty  must  always  be  limited  to  the 
things  that  don't  hurt  other  people.  I  think  the  same 
thing  is  true  of  every  little  village.  I  think  our  govern- 
ment ought  to  permit  every  little  community  to  govern 
itself  absolutely  in  those  things  that  don't  hurt  the  com- 
munity round  about.  If  it  wants  to  have  a  baseball 
ground,  I  don't  think  the  State  ought  to  interfere,  so 
long  as  they  use  it  properly.  We  should  not  compel  them 
or  prevent  them.  That  is  a  local  affair;  it  doesn't  hurt 
the  rest  of  the  county.  I  believe  the  community  should 
have  a  right  to  do  as  it  pleases  in  all  things  that  do  not 
hurt  the  larger  territory.  The  moment  that  a  community 
wants  to  do  something  that  hurts  the  territory  round 
about,  the  sovereign  power  of  the  State  has  a  right  to  step 
in  and  say,  "No,  you  must  be  limited  there."  That  seems 
to  me  to  be  the  A  B  C  of  democracy.  That  is  the  basis 
for  the  government  of  our  State  of  California ;  our  cities 
are  allowed  to  govern  themselves  in  things  that  are  local, 
and  so  are  our  counties ;  but  the  State  holds  the  power 
over  all  of  saying  that  in  questions  that  affect  the  State, 
the  State  shall  decide. 

I  want  you  to  apply  that  principle  to  the  saloon  ques- 
tion, and  I  will  start  by  asking  a  question.  Will  anybody 
claim  that  closing  the  saloon  in  one  town  hurts  the  rest 
of  the  county?  It  is  almost  universally  admitted  to-day 
that  the  saloon  is  a  nuisance ;  some  of  us  think  more  and 
some  less,  but  everybody  admits  that  it  is  a  nuisance  or 
may  become  so.     Even  the  Royal  Arch  admits  that  and 

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Addresses  World's  Social  Progress  Congress 

advocates  regulation.  If  we  talked  about  regulating  our 
grocery  stores  as  they  say  the  saloons  ought  to  be  regu- 
lated, we  should  have  a  revolution.  I  submit,  then,  that 
shutting  the  saloon  out  of  one  community  doesn't  hurt  the 
larger  territory.  They  haven't  any  saloons  in  Palo  Alto, 
and  there  are  lots  of  them  in  San  Jose  in  the  same  county. 
Does  closing  the  saloons  in  Palo  Alto  hurt  San  Jose?  I 
never  heard  anybody  suggest  such  a  thing.  It  is  almost 
unanimously  admitted  that  closing  the  saloons  in  Palo 
Alto  didn't  hurt  the  rest  of  the  county.  I  submit,  there- 
fore, that  Palo  Alto  has  a  right  to  close  her  saloons  and 
keep  them  so,  and  that  it  would  be  an  outrage  if  the  rest 
of  the  county  should  step  in  and  force  the  saloons  back 
into  Palo  Alto.  Since  closing  them  didn't  hurt  the  rest 
of  the  county,  Palo  Alto  has  a  right  to  that  measure  of 
self-government. 

Did  keeping  the  saloons  in  San  Jose  hurt  Palo  Alto? 
Some  people  may  say,  No.  I  think  I  can  prove  the  con- 
trary. I  can  prove  this ;  that  the  people  in  Palo  Alto  are 
paying  taxes  to  support  the  saloons  of  San  Jose.  I  don't 
think  we  have  many  intelligent  citizens  to-day  who  deny 
that  the  saloon  furnishes  a  large  proportion  of  the  in- 
mates for  the  county  jail  and  county  almshouse  and 
county  prison.  In  the  first  two  years  after  this  came 
about,  one-eighth  of  the  population  that  was  wet  kept 
six  times  as  many  people  in  the  county  jail  as  the  part 
that  was  dry.  Who  paid  for  that,  the  one-eighth?  No, 
the  whole  county  was  taxed  to  feed  the  prisoners  and 
support  the  almshouse.  San  Jose  has  ninety  odd  saloons, 
and  they  are  furnishing  men  to  the  county  jail  and  county 
hospital  and  county  almshouse.  The  county  is  the  unit 
of  taxation,  and  the  whole  county  is  helping  to  pay  the 
bill.    The  whole  county,  therefore,  has  a  right  to  have  a 

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Fair  Legislation  and  the  Liquor  Traffic 

voice  in  saying  whether  or  not  these  saloons  shall  stay- 
there. 

Let  me  follow  that  up  a  little  farther.  San  Jose  is  the 
county  seat.  That  makes  it  the  social  center,  the  commer- 
cial center,  the  educational  center,  and  the  legal  center. 
If  you  have  ninety-six  saloons  in  the  legal,  commercial, 
social,  and  educational  center  of  the  county,  doesn't  that 
affect  all  the  county  ?  The  people  in  the  country  are  send- 
ing their  young  people  to  school  there;  men  are  coming 
in  with  their  teams  to  do  business,  and  the  men  and 
women  of  the  whole  county  go  there.  I  submit  that  the 
people  in  the  rest  of  the  county  have  just  about  as  much 
interest  in  the  saloons  in  San  Jose  as  the  people  in  San 
Jose  have.  They  are  affected  to  a  very  large  extent,  and 
are  injured  by  them.  Therefore  the  people  in  the  county 
as  a  whole  ought  to  have  a  voice  if  they  wish.  But  you 
can't  reverse  that,  because  putting  the  saloons  out  of  Palo 
Alto  didn't  hurt  the  rest  of  the  county;  but  keeping  the 
saloons  in  San  Jose  did  hurt  the  rest  of  the  county.  That 
is  why  the  saloon  should  go,  because  the  saloon  is  a  hurt- 
ful and  harmful  institution — that  is  why  the  law  should 
not  work  the  same  both  ways.  And  when  we  have  had 
a  law  that  will  let  the  people  close  the  saloons  in  Palo 
Alto,  and  then  we  ask  for  a  larger  law  to  enable  the  peo- 
ple to  close  them  in  San  Jose,  it  would  be  an  outrage  if 
we  did  not  put  in  a  clause  saying  that  nobody  shall  force 
the  saloons  to  reopen  in  Palo  Alto.  The  community  has 
a  right  to  local  self-government  only  in  those  things  that 
do  not  hurt  the  larger  territory.  That  is  a  fundamental 
proposition.  If  we  keep  that  clearly  before  us,  we  will 
reaHze  that  the  smallest  community  has  a  right  to  close  its 
saloons,  no  matter  what  the  rest  of  the  State  does.  Any 
district  that  wants  to,  ought  to  have  that  right.  On  the 
other  hand,  if  the  whole  county  wants  prohibition,  no  lit- 

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Addresses  World's  Social  Progress  Congress 

tie  community  has  a  right  to  have  saloons  against  the  will 
of  the  county;  and  if  the  whole  State  wants  prohibition, 
no  city,  not  even  San  Francisco,  would  have  a  right  to 
have  saloons  against  the  will  of  the  sovereign  people  of 
the  State. 

This  will  help  you  when  you  meet  a  lot  of  people  who 
are  mixed  on  this  subject.  It  is  for  this  reason  that  I 
stand  on  the  right  of  local  prohibition;  and  I  insist  that 
no  sovereign  power  has  a  right  to  force  a  nuisance  upon 
any  part  of  the  territory,  if  that  part  doesn't  want  the 
nuisance.  As  a  matter  of  common  justice  and  decency, 
it  is  an  outrage  to  force  a  nuisance  on  any  community 
that  doesn't  want  it.  Therefore,  we  have  a  right  to  de- 
mand that  every  unit  shall  be  given  the  right  to  get  rid  of 
its  saloons,  and  we  are  not  in  favor  of  a  law  that  would 
reverse  that  position.  I  believe  that  in  standing  on  that 
basis  we  are  not  only  logical,  but  that  we  are  adhering  to 
the  fundamental  principles  of  sound  democracy;  and  if 
we  will  keep  our  thinking  clear,  we  will  realize  that  in 
order  to  be  fair  to  the  people,  we  cannot  treat  the  saloon 
in  the  same  way  as  a  schoolhouse  or  a  grocery  store,  or 
any  other  helpful  institution.  We  are  dealing  with  a 
thing  which  is  harmful,  and  it  hasn't  the  same  rights  in 
the  courts  of  justice  and  to  fair  play  as  legitimate  busi- 
ness has. 


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Chapter  XXV. 

THE  TESTIMONY  OF  SCIENCE  AS  TO  ALCO- 
HOL AND  SOCIAL  PROGRESS. 

BY  DAVID   STARR   JORDAN 

After  this  eloquent  discourse  of  my  friend,  Mr. 
Hughes,  I  have  to  give  you  a  cold-blooded  account  of  al- 
cohol as  seen  by  the  light  of  science.  You  know  that 
alcohol  is  a  substance  that  doesn't  exist  in  nature,  but  is 
made  by  the  decomposition  of  sugar,  and  the  sugar  will 
not  be  decomposed  unless  there  are  minute  organisms  in 
it  that  tear  it  all  to  pieces,  and  under  these  circumstances, 
carbonic  acid  gas  and  alcohol  are  formed. 

There  was  a  great  deal  said  not  long  ago  of  the  dis- 
covery of  a  professor  in  a  Methodist  college  that  alcohol 
was  food  up  to  a  quarter  of  a  teaspoonful,  with  water; 
but  that  is  not  of  much  value  to  the  person  who  drinks 
alcohol  for  the  kick  it  gives,  for  all  the  rest  is  a  poison. 
And  it  is  a  sham.  That  is,  it  gives  feelings  that  don't 
correspond  with  the  actual  facts.  The  fundamental  effect 
of  alcohol  is  to  teach  the  nervous  system  to  lie,  and  after 
it  once  gets  to  bringing  false  messages  to  the  brain,  both 
the  nervous  system  and  the  brain  get  to  be  Hars,  and  that 
habit  grows  on  them. 

Alcohol  that  is  left  over  after  you  have  digested  a 
quarter  of  a  teaspoonful,  is  a  poison.  One  of  the  greatest 
scientists  of  our  time  said  that  if  alcohol  were  a  newly- 
discovered  drug  from  a  German  laboratory,  every  civil- 
ized nation  would  prohibit  its  use  as  it  has  already  pro- 
hibited the  far  more  valuable  drug,  cocaine,  more  valu- 
able and  less  dangerous.     People  do  acquire  the  cocaine 

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habit,  but  mostly  people  who  had  the  alcohol  habit  before. 
There  is  far  less  likelihood  of  acquiring  the  cocaine  habit 
than  there  is  the  alcohol  habit. 

Of  course,  alcohol  injures  the  liver,  producing  a  pecu- 
liar condition  of  the  liver;  but  I  will  not  describe  that. 
It  has  been  called  a  "hob-nailed  liver" ;  that  is,  the  differ- 
ent cells  become  swollen  and  modified  and  hard.  It  also 
affects  the  kidneys.  The  kidneys  are  to  carry  off  poison, 
but  they  get  drunk  on  alcohol,  and  this  tends  to  bring  on 
a  disease  of  the  kidneys.  But  these  are  relatively  minor 
things. 

One  of  the  things  that  has  lately  been  discovered  by 
Metschnikopf,  the  great  Russian  physicist,  is  that  we 
have  in  the  human  body  little  blood  cells — not  the  red 
ones,  but  others — that  act  as  Hving  guardians,  and  go 
around  in  the  blood,  and  when  they  find  any  Httle  organ- 
isms there,  they  kill  them  and  devour  them.  They  are 
police  to  keep  out  intruders ;  the  germs  of  tuberculosis, 
or  pneumonia  that  are  present  in  the  air  all  the  winter 
long;  and  sometimes  when  there  is  a  congested  place, 
pneumonia  comes  on.  A  cold  doesn't  generally  result  in 
pneumonia  or  consumption,  but  it  gives  a  congested  sur- 
face for  the  germs  to  grow,  and  these  phagocytes,  as  they 
are  called,  should  be  on  hand.  "Devourers  of  cells"  is  the 
meaning  of  the  word  in  Greek.  They  devour  the  germs 
of  these  diseases,  and  a  great  many  of  these  disease  germs 
are  devoured  in  this  way.  We  are  constantly  exposed  to 
tuberculosis,  but  in  most  cases  the  phagocytes  get  in  their 
work  and  destroy  the  germs.  In  the  same  way  we  are 
often  exposed  to  measles,  or  whooping  cough,  or  small 
pox;  there  are  many  of  these  infectious  diseases;  they 
may  be  carried  by  foul  air  or  water,  or  carried  by  mos- 
quitoes or  flies.  Typhus  is  carried  by  Hce,  which  infest 
every  army.     Mexico  is   full  of  typhoid   fever  because 

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Mexico  is  full  of  lice  and  bed  bugs,  because  they  are  hav- 
ing war  and  haven't  time  to  attend  to  these  things. 

The  phagocytes  are  busy  destroying  these  things,  and 
we  should  be  very  grateful.  Alcohol  paralyzes  them ;  they 
are  paralyzed  by  it  and  don't  do  their  work.  So  when  you 
invite  your  friend  to  drink,  you  should  say  to  him,  "Come, 
let  us  paralyze  all  our  phagocytes."  So  long  as  the  influ- 
ence of  liquor  lasts,  a  person  is  more  likely  to  be  infected 
by  some  disease. 

A  very  late  discovery  that  is  due  to  Professor  Saleeby 
of  Cornell,  shows  that  alcohol  is  what  they  call  a  race 
poison.  That  is,  every  human  being  was  originally  the 
product  of  two  germ  cells  mingled  together,  the  germ 
cells  from  the  father  and  the  mother,  and  these  unite, 
bringing  together  the  hereditary  material  from  both  sides, 
and  the  little  embryo  grows.  Alcohol  paralyzes  these 
cells  also,  and  people  who  drink  moderately  or  extrava- 
gantly— all  drink  is  immoderate,  it  is  better  not  to  drink 
any  of  it — for  people  who  drink  are  likely  to  have  these 
germ  cells  paralyzed,  and  sometimes  ruined,  and  this,  of 
course,  brings  about  sterility;  the  embryo  doesn't  grow. 
Sometimes  distortion  or  a  defective  nervous  system  re- 
sults, and  there  are  a  great  many  epileptics  and  feeble- 
minded produced  because  these  germ  cells  were  injured 
but  not  destroyed.  A  large  amount  of  sterility  comes 
from  the  use  of  alcohol,  and  by  experimenting  with 
smaller  animals  they  have  found  that  by  a  sufficient 
amount  of  alcohol,  they  can  damage  nearly  all  of  the 
germ  cells.  Just  as  a  young  animal  that  is  fed  alcohol 
becomes  stupid  and  doesn't  grow,  so  it  is  with  the  germ 
cells  themselves,  for  they  are  in  intimate  connection  with 
the  nervous  system.  So  we  speak  of  a  race  poison,  slow 
developing  and  terrible.  It  is  like  syphilis,  because  it 
can  be  passed  from  one  generation  to  another  until  it 

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Addresses  World's  Social  Progress  Congress 

runs  out.  This  new  count  against  alcohol  is  a  very  seri- 
ous one. 

The  damage  done  by  alcohol  is  in  proportion  to  the 
amount  used.  Beer  has  less  alcohol  than  the  distilled 
liquors,  where  the  alcohol  is  brought  out  separately  from 
the  water.  They  have  a  very  much  higher  percentage, 
and  so  do  a  good  many  of  the  patent  medicines.  Peruna 
and  Mrs.  Pinkham's  Compound,  and  a  variety  of  others, 
have  their  effect,  whatever  it  may  be,  because  they  con- 
tain alcohol.  The  other  ingredients  are  largely  put  in 
for  coloring.  In  fact,  nearly  all  these  advertised  cures 
for  nervous  and  other  difficulties,  belong  to  one  or  the 
other  of  two  classes :  Either  they  are  sugar  and  water, 
very  harmless  and  very  expensive,  or  else  they  are  made 
of  whisky  and  some  coloring  matter.  A  great  many  good 
men,  including  some  of  the  Methodist  ministers  ordained 
in  the  earlier  days  you  have  heard  about  just  now, 
thought  these  bitters  would  do  them  a  great  deal  of  good 
where  whisky  would  do  them  harm.  But  you  can  always 
drink  water,  and  if  that  doesn't  suit,  you  can  use  White 
Rock  water,  which  sparkles  like  champagne. 

Drunkenness  is  merely  the  effort  of  nature  to  throw 
off  this  poison.  There  are  many  varieties  of  drunken- 
ness; the  joyous  kind,  like  the  man  who  was  seen  with 
his  head  in  an  ash  barrel,  singing  a  song,  although  even 
the  dogs  knew  that  he  wasn't  happy,  though  he  insisted 
that  he  was.  Then  there  is  the  grouchy  drunk  and  the 
emetic  drunk  and  the  savage  drunk  and  the  stupid  drunk, 
and  then  there  is  the  drunk  who  imagines  that  he  is  more 
witty  than  he  ever  was  before.  But  it  is  all  drunkenness, 
and  the  more  one  drinks,  the  longer  one  continues  this 
sort  of  thing,  the  more  he  fails  to  throw  it  off,  and  the 
nervous  system  grows  weaker  and  weaker  until  he  can 
drink  a  good  deal  without  throwing  it  off.     But  that 

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doesn't  show  that  he  is  really  not  injured  by  it.  It 
wouldn't  be  an  evidence  of  sensitiveness  or  health  if  a 
man  should  burn  his  finger  so  many  times  that  at  last 
he  could  no  longer  feel  it. 

The  principal  evil  effect  is,  of  course,  on  the  nerves. 
You  know  what  delicate  machinery  we  have  in  the  brain ; 
it  is  the  finest  thing  ever  put  together  in  the  way  of  ma- 
chinery; miUions  of  parts  all  joined  together  in  such 
marvelous  fashion  as  to  give  us  the  greatest  wonder  that 
we  know  of  in  the  universe,  the  wonder  of  human  con- 
sciousness, through  which  we  know  something  of  God's 
world  about  us;  and  the  minute  this  machinery  stops 
working,  a  man  doesn't  really  exist  any  longer,  for  when 
the  brain  is  gone,  everything  is  gone,  and  when  the  brain 
is  injured,  the  man  is  injured.  Alcohol  injures  the  brain, 
all  of  it  except  what  is  used  for  food,  and  that  is  nearly 
all  of  it,  the  alcohol  itself,  the  undigested  part,  the  part 
that  can't  be  handled  in  the  stomach.  The  brain  is  con- 
nected with  the  outside  world  by  a  series  of  nerves  that 
carry  impressions  from  the  eye  or  the  ear  or  the  fingers, 
and  from  them  the  brain  sends  out  its  orders  to  the  dif- 
ferent organs. 

The  story  is  told  of  a  man  who  came  into  his  office  one 
morning  and  said,  "Well,  the  world  looks  different  to  a 
man  who  has  had  a  good  drink  of  brandy  and  soda  in 
the  morning" ;  and  one  of  the  clerks  said,  "Yes,  and  he 
looks  different  to  the  world."  When  a  man  drinks,  the 
brain  doesn't  know  how  to  look  at  the  world,  it  is  con- 
fused and  doesn't  give  the  proper  orders.  A  man  tries 
to  take  both  sides  of  the  street.  The  fact  is  that  alcohol 
confuses  the  brain  and  leads  the  nervous  system  to  tell 
what  is  not  true. 

Now,  this  condition  leaves  its  mark,  and  the  more  you 
take,  the  more  you  want,  until  a  man  is  uncomfortable 

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Addresses  World's  Social  Progress  Congress 

without  it.  Like  tobacco,  it  first  creates  a  disagree- 
able impression  and  leaves  the  nervous  system  irri- 
tated. Just  as  when  a  mosquito  bites  you,  it  is  a  pleasure 
to  scratch  it;  but  the  more  you  scratch  it,  the  more  you 
have  to.  The  man  who  lies  back  in  his  chair  and  enjoys  a 
smoke  feels  no  better  than  the  ordinary  man  feels  all  the 
time.    He  is  simply  scratching  the  mosquito  bite. 

We  speak  of  liquor  as  a  stimulant.  It  is  not,  in  any 
proper  sense.  It  is  a  nerve  depressant.  It  acts  upon  the 
nerves  to  reduce  their  action  as  well  as  to  confuse  it.  It 
isn't  properly  a  stimulant,  but  it  acts  first  on  the  highest 
qualities  of  the  nerve  and  brain ;  it  loosens  those  restraints 
and  reserves  that  we  build  up,  what  we  call  character; 
those  things  that  prevent  us  from  being  a  common  nui- 
sance because  you  do  everything  you  might  do.  Those 
go  first,  and  then  the  ordinary,  cheaper  qualities  of  a  man 
come  to  the  surface.  One  of  my  German  friends  has 
urged  that  it  has  great  value  to  give  a  loosening  up. 
That  means  simply  that  the  reserves  that  we  build  up  are 
weakened,  and  it  lets  loose  anything  of  which  we  think. 
So  the  individual  seems  to  be  stimulated ;  he  is  simply 
turned  loose ;  he  doesn't  care  what  he  says  or  does.  We 
could,  any  of  us,  be  quite  a  nuisance  if  we  dropped  our 
ordinary  restraint  and  dignity. 

When  we  take  a  hen  or  turkey  and  put  it  on  the  block 
and  cut  off  its  head,  the  animal  shows  greater  activity 
than  it  ever  did  before.  There  is  a  loosening  up  of  all 
restraint ;  the  head  is  gone,  and  the  nerves  operate  on  the 
different  muscles  and  the  chicken  flies  around.  I  have 
heard  women  say,  when  they  were  excited,  that  they  acted 
like  a  hen  with  its  head  cut  off.  It  is  a  loosening  of  all 
restraints,  and  it  is  also  accompanied  by  a  false  exalta- 
tion; you  think  you  are  feeling  better.  Coffee  does  the 
same  thing,  only  to  a  lesser  degree.    Beer  and  wine  teach 

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the  nervous  system  to  lie,  and  just  to  the  extent  that  you 
feel  exalted,  you  feel  depressed  afterward.  You  have 
that  dark-brown  taste  in  the  morning,  which  is  just  as 
natural  an  effect  as  the  exaltation.  With  the  continued 
use  of  alcohol,  the  exaltation  grows  less  and  less  and  the 
depression  greater. 

This  is  the  scientific  side,  as  related  to  man.  It  has  an- 
other relation,  and  that  is  to  society.  It  is  part  of  our 
democratic  system  to  give  every  man  just  as  much  free- 
dom as  he  can  use  without  injury  to  others.  We  don't 
dictate  what  time  men  shall  go  to  bed ;  we  let  them  do  as 
they  please.  We  want  to  give  all  the  freedom  that  we 
can.  But  there  is  a  boundary  to  that  kind  of  freedom, 
and  that  is  the  boundary  of  injury  to  others.  Our  count 
against  liquor  from  the  social  point  of  view  is  that  it  is 
unsanitary,  dangerous  to  the  community.  Drunken  men 
are  dangerous.  You  remember  that  at  the  time  of  the 
earthquake.  General  Funston  closed  all  the  saloons,  and 
there  was  no  crime  for  nearly  three  months.  Then  they 
were  opened,  and  there  was  a  murder  every  night.  They 
weren't  cured  during  that  time ;  they  left  town,  and  when 
the  town  was  open  again  they  came  back.  If  you  can 
arrange  to  have  people  of  this  sort  leave  towns  enough, 
by  and  by  they  will  cease  to  want  to  be  saturates.  There 
is  practically  no  crime  in  a  region  where  no  liquor  is  sold. 

I  have  heard  a  great  deal  of  criticism  of  Maine  by  peo- 
ple who  have  found  liquor  there.  I  have  been  in  Maine  a 
good  deal  in  the  interest  of  my  work  on  the  boundary. 
I  have  been,  for  instance,  in  St.  Croix,  up  the  river,  when 
along  late  in  the  evening,  evil-looking  creatures  would 
come  out  of  the  ground  and  offer  to  show  you  where 
liquor  is  sold.  But  I  have  seen  in  many  cities  there,  boys 
growing  up  who  have  never  seen  the  inside  of  a  saloon; 
who  know  it  only  as  a  far-off  thing.    It  is  a  tremendous 

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thing  to  make  the  sale  of  Hquor  illegal,  even  though  you 
have  blind  pigs  on  every  street.  There  is  a  difference  be- 
tween its  being  illegal,  and  its  being  backed  by  the  law; 
and  I  say  with  a  great  deal  of  positiveness  that  Maine 
is  a  sober  State.  There  are  many  saturates  left;  in  the 
summer  time  it  is  over  run  by  people  who  carry  bottles 
of  liquor  from  Boston  and  New  York  and  even  more  bar- 
barous districts ;  but  the  great  body  of  the  people  in 
Maine  are  not  connected  with  this ;  and,  what  is  most  im- 
portant of  all,  there  is  growing  up  a  body  of  young  men 
and  women  who  do  not  know  anything  of  the  influence 
connected  with  the  saloon.  And  that  is  true  also  of  Kan- 
sas, and  of  Alabama.  In  the  town  of  Montgomery,  I  was 
impressed  by  the  change  from  what  it  was  ten  or  fifteen 
years  ago.  Some  thirty  years  ago  I  met  a  young  fellow 
there  who  told  me,  as  a  great  curiosity,  that  there  was  a 
man  in  Crab  Orchard  who  never  drank  whisky ;  and  now 
that  county  has  gone  dry,  and  the  whole  South  has  under- 
gone an  amazing  change  of  heart. 

That  was  a  fine  touch  in  Mr.  Hughes'  address  where  he 
showed  the  relation  of  liquor  and  war.  Every  reformer 
knows  how  the  evil  influences  entrench  themselves,  as 
they  are  doing  in  Europe  to-day.  In  Russia,  there  has 
come  some  advantage;  they  have  no  freedom,  and  the 
Czar  can  reach  out  and  stop  the  liquor  traffic.  The  only 
time  I  was  ever  in  Russia  was  on  this  side,  and  I  wanted 
to  see  one  of  the  seal  rookeries  there.  The  Russians  were 
in  doubt  whether  to  permit  it,  and  they  poured  out  vodka 
and  drank  over  it,  and  while  they  were  thus  engaged,  I 
went  over  to  the  rookery  and  saw  all  of  it  before  it  had 
been  decided  whether  I  had  permission  to  do  so.  So  I 
was  interested  in  the  habits  of  Russia  at  that  time;  and 
their  habit  was  to  be  drunk  after  four  o'clock. 

Now,  England  is  going  dry.    England  has  been  cursed 

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more  than  this  country  by  the  liquor  traffic,  partly  because 
it  is  legalized  here  only  for  a  year  at  a  time ;  but  in  Eng- 
land a  man  can  sell  Hquor  unless  there  is  some  reason  why 
he  shouldn't;  and  when  he  gets  a  license,  it  is  legalized 
and  goes  on  with  the  place.  You  know  the  House  of 
Lords  is  sometimes  spoken  of  as  the  Beerage  of  England, 
because  so  many  of  them  are  brewers  who  have  paid  from 
sixty  to  ninety  thousand  dollars,  and  have  thus  become 
members  of  the  House  of  Lords. 

One  of  the  great  reasons  why  the  saloon  should  be  abol- 
ished in  the  name  of  sanitation  is  its  connection  with  the 
Red  Light  District.  Among  the  appurtenances  of  nearly 
every  saloon  is  some  house  of  ill  fame.  An  army  surgeon 
made  a  statement  in  regard  to  one  of  our  army  posts,  that 
the  soldiers  very  rarely  go  to  a  house  of  prostitution 
when  they  are  sober,  and  very  rarely  when  they  are  drunk  ; 
but  when  they  have  had  a  glass  or  two  of  beer,  they  go. 
Then  they  are  ruined,  for  sooner  or  later  those  who 
visit  these  places  become  infected  with  an  almost  incur- 
able disease.  One  is  caused  by  a  parasitic  animal  that 
gets  into  the  blood;  and  the  other,  not  so  severe,  but 
harder  to  cure,  is  a  little  plant  organism ;  and  this  is  one 
of  the  greatest  scourges  of  womankind,  because  so  many 
surgical  cases  are  caused  by  it.  Sterility  is  also  caused  by 
this  infection.  We  have  a  moral  right  and  duty,  all  the 
right  a  free  country  can  give,  to  attack  a  thing  that  brings 
about  such  conditions. 

Mills  once  said,  "Small  efforts  can  never  attack  great 
evils."  They  do  not  have  small  effects ;  they  have  no 
effect  at  all.  To  eradicate  this  evil  we  must  go  at  it,  not 
by  small  efforts,  but  with  a  determination  to  get  out  of 
our  society  any  profit  from  the  sale  of  alcohol. 


305 


Chapter  XXVL 
VOTES  FOR  WOMEN  AND  SOCIAL  PROGRESS. 

BY  MRS.  GERBERLING. 

As  I  belong  to  San  Francisco  and  am  a  native  daughter, 
I  naturally  hesitate  very  much  about  making  a  suffrage 
speech  here  in  California,  where  we  have  already  got  suf- 
frage and  the  struggle  is  behind  us,  so  that  now  nothing 
bores  an  audience  more  than  suffrage.  We  suffragists 
are  out  of  a  job,  and  besides,  it  takes  all  our  time  to 
keep  up  with  our  municipal  campaign  and  all  the  political 
activities  that  we  have  undertaken,  and  so  we  haven't 
time  to  talk  about  suffrage,  except  as  it  may  help  the 
other  States  of  the  Union. 

The  Congressional  Union  was  formed  for  the  purpose 
of  holding  this  administration,  or  any  administration, 
responsible  for  not  bringing  forward  the  amendment  giv- 
ing women  in  this  country  the  suffrage.  We  do  not  at- 
tack this  administration  particularly;  we  should  attack 
any  administration  for  the  same  reason;  but  they  are 
responsible  for  not  submitting  the  Susan  B.  Anthony 
amendment.  This  amendment  started  in  1875,  and  has 
had  a  rather  difficult  career  ever  since.  It  is  not  the 
same  as  the  Mondell  amendment,  which  is  for  the  purpose 
of  submitting  the  matter  to  the  different  States. 

It  seems  to  me  that  the  only  right  thing  to  do  is  to  get 
a  Federal  amendment;  if  this  Federal  amendment  could 
only  go  through,  thirty-six  States  would  be  enfranchised 
at  once.  W^e  already  have  eleven;  we  have  the  solid 
West,  and  I  defy  any  one  to  point  out  any  important  in- 
stance where  the  suffrage  has  not  been  a  success.  I  can 
say  most  decidedly  that  we  have  found  it  an  unquahfied 
success  here.     (Applause.) 

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Votes  for  Women  and  Social  Progress 

We  found  out  a  great  many  things  after  having  this 
suffrage  given  to  us ;  we  found,  for  instance,  that  in  many- 
cases  we  had  been  wasting  our  time  over  charities.  We 
used  to  tell  a  story  about  a  woman  who  came  into  her 
kitchen  and  found  the  water  all  turned  on  and  overflow- 
ing the  sink  onto  the  floor,  and  the  maid  busy  wiping  up 
the  water.  When  she  had  turned  off  the  water,  she  asked 
the  maid,  "Why  didn't  you  turn  off  that  water?"  And 
the  maid  answered,  "I  couldn't,  because  I  was  so  busy 
mopping  up;  I  didn't  have  time." 

We  found  that  in  a  great  many  cases  we  had  been  just 
like  that  maid.  Florence  Kelley,  the  well-known  social 
worker,  said  to  me,  "I  wish  I  had  taken  up  this  question 
of  suffrage  sixteen  years  ago."  Jane  Addams,  too,  has 
come  out  in  favor  of  suffrage ;  almost  all  our  great  women 
have  come  to  it,  and  we  feel  sure  that  these  women  are 
on  the  right  track. 

The  constitution  now  provides  that  color,  race,  or  pre- 
vious condition  of  servitude  shall  be  no  bar  to  the  right 
of  suffrage;  we  want  to  add  to  these  words  the  word, 
''sex."  Sex  has  nothing  to  do  with  voting.  I  don't  Hke 
the  idea  of  sex  entering  into  any  question  of  merit.  That 
is  one  great  thing  that  this  exposition  has  accomplished ; 
there  is  no  women's  building.  The  work  of  the  woman 
painter  is  in  the  Fine  Arts  Building;  it  is  a  matter  of  the 
merit  of  the  painting,  not  a  matter  of  sex.  As  one  of  the 
previous  speakers  has  said,  this  is  a  transition  age ;  we 
no  longer  respect  a  man  who  simply  piles  up  money.  Dr. 
Felix  Adler  said  once  that  to  see  a  man  devote  his  life  to 
making  millions  of  bricks  was  not  an  inspiring  sight. 
When  a  man  really  wishes  to  do  fine  work,  he  makes 
bricks  enough  to  build  a  workshop,  then  he  goes  on  to 
his  real  work.  It  has  come  to  be  a  matter  for  rebuke 
when  a  man  devotes  himself  to  the  one  object  of  piling  up 

307 


Addresses  World's  Social  Progress  Congress 

money  and  nothing  else.  We  must  have  higher  stand- 
ards in  our  social  life,  and  by  giving  women  the  vote,  we 
give  into  the  hands  of  a  class  of  the  community  which 
has  remained  outside  of  this  commercialism,  the  power  to 
combat  it.  The  problem  of  commercialized  vice  is  one 
of  the  questions  that  we  have  to  settle.  We  already  have 
our  Red  Light  Abatement  Bill,  I  am  thankful  to  say.  I 
believe  the  women  will  bring  to  these  problems  a  sort  of 
housekeeping  instinct  that  a  man  lacks.  It  comes  natural 
for  women  to  do  municipal  housekeeping. 

This  sixty-third  Congress  has  passed  a  good  deal  of 
legislation,  there  has  been  a  war  tax,  and  banking  legisla- 
tion, and  they  nearly  passed  a  Federal  ship  purchasing 
bill ;  but  practically  all  the  legislation  that  has  passed  suc- 
cessfully has  been  concerned  with  commercial  things. 
Congress  has  failed  to  pass  the  measures  dealing  with 
child  labor,  the  protection  of  women,  conservation,  and 
such  bills.  You  will  notice  that  the  preference  has  been 
given  to  protecting  the  rights  of  property  and  business, 
not  to  the  protection  of  human  life. 

These  women  of  the  Congressional  Union  feel  that  the 
question  of  suffrage  should  come  before  this  Congress; 
that  it  should  not  be  snowed  under  by  business  and  preju- 
dice. It  seems  to  me  that  every  man  and  woman  ought 
to  work  for  this  amendment  and  do  what  they  can  to  help. 
Ask  your  Senators  and  Congressmen  how  they  stand  on 
this  question.  If  it  is  possible  to  convert  them,  well  and 
good;  if  they  are  influenced  by  selfish  motives,  it  is  best 
to  make  them  come  out  and  show  where  they  stand. 
Every  one  can  help  in  this  way;  if  thousands  of  letters 
are  sent  it  will  do  great  good,  and  I  appeal  to  you  to  help 
in  every  manner  that  you  can  in  this  great  movement  for 
the  enfranchisement  of  women. 

308 


Chapter  XXVII. 
TAXATION  AND  SOCIAL  PROGRESS. 

BY   A.    J.    WALLACE 

I  have  the  driest  subject  in  the  world  to  bring  before 
you  this  afternoon;  the  most  persistent,  and  also  one  of 
the  liveliest — Taxes.  There  are  two  problems  presenting 
themselves  all  the  time ;  one  is  the  ever-increasing  tax 
rate,  and  the  other,  the  ever-increasing  wealth  of  certain 
residents  of  our  States  and  cities.  I  want  to  touch  upon 
them  both,  and  make  the  menace  of  great  wealth  and  the 
burden  of  great  taxation  bear  a  relation  to  each  other  that 
shall  prove  helpful  in  the  solution  of  some  problems.  I 
am  not  going  to  suggest  any  plan  by  which  the  expenses 
of  government  will  be  less  than  they  now  are.  I  am  only 
going  to  suggest  that  the  taxes  might,  to  some  degree,  be 
raised  by  another  method.  We  shall  have  taxes  as  long  as 
we  have  our  ideals.  This  is  the  day  of  costly  living,  isn't 
it?  Yes.  We  want  the  telephone.  We  Hke  candles,  but 
we  would  rather  have  kerosene,  and  still  rather  have  gas 
than  either,  and  we  have  a  still  more  decided  preference 
for  electricity.  Once  I  had  an  ox  cart;  then  I  secured  a 
lumber  wagon,  and  then  I  had  a  buggy  and  now  I  have 
an  automobile,  and  there  is  a  difference  in  the  cost.  The 
same  condition  prevails  in  public  matters.  We  will  have 
schoolhouses  that  outrank  the  university  buildings  of 
twenty  years  ago.  We  will  have  automobiles ;  and  auto- 
mobiles mean  good  roads  at  an  outlay  of  millions  of  dol- 
lars. But  we  are  going  to  have  them,  and  they  are  going 
to  cost,  and  we  are  going  to  pay  the  bills.  How  are  we 
going  to  do  it? 

309 


Addresses  World's  Social  Progress  Congress 

On  the  other  hand,  we  have  wealth  in  our  country 
greater  than  you  think  we  have.  We  have  more  million- 
aires than  you  dream,  unless  you  have  looked  it  up.  There 
are  men  here  whose  hair  is  turning  white  who  can  re- 
member as  well  as  I  can  the  time  when  you  could  count 
on  the  fingers  of  one  hand  all  the  millionaires  whose 
names  you  had  ever  heard.  Now  we  have  men  who  are 
not  merely  millionaires,  but  multi-milHonaires.  We  have 
in  our  land  to-day  men  whose  wealth  is  nearer  the  billion 
mark  than  the  million,  though  we  can't  understand  what 
that  means. 

Do  you  realize  that  we  have  men  in  our  country — in- 
dividuals— so  rich  that  it  would  have  made  a  kingdom 
wealthy  in  the  old  time?  Do  you  know  that  there  are 
men  whose  annual  income  is  greater  than  the  annual  in- 
come of  the  government  was  under  George  Washington? 
Whose  wealth  is  so  great  that  their  annual  income  is 
equal  to  the  annual,  regular  expenditure  of  the  govern- 
ment of  this  State?  We  have  wealth  so  great,  accumu- 
lated in  the  last  fifteen  years  mainly,  that  that  wealth  is 
a  menace  to-day,  or,  if  not  to-day,  it  only  needs  to  in- 
crease in  the  next  half-score  years  as  it  has  in  the  last 
and  everybody  will  admit  that  it  is  a  menace,  while  in 
the  hands  of  a  few. 

Do  you  question  it?  Let  me  tell  you  something.  Be- 
yond all  that  we  knew  before,  we  have  learned  something 
in  the  last  year.  The  Federal  Government  at  last  has  an 
income  tax,  which  is  something  very  different  from  an 
inheritance  tax.  The  income  tax  has  revealed  some 
things.  In  these  United  States  forty-four  men,  men  who 
have  tried  to  push  down  as  low  as  they  dare  the  statement 
of  the  total  amount  of  their  income — forty-four  men  un- 
der oath  have  declared  that  their  annual  income  is  over  a 
million  dollars  apiece.     You  don't  grasp  it;  you  almost 

310 


Taxation  and  Social  Progress 

thought  I  said  they  were  worth  a  milHon  dollars  apiece; 
but  their  annual  income,  sworn  to  under  oath,  is  a  mil- 
lion or  more  apiece,  and  there  are  ninety-one  men,  each 
of  whose  income  is  over  half  a  million.  This  is  a  reve- 
lation made  only  recently,  under  this  Federal  law. 

In  one  district  in  the  State  of  New  York,  twenty-six 
men,  under  the  income  tax,  pay  $2,800,000.  In  other 
words,  they  pay  over  a  hundred  thousand  dollars  apiece 
of  income  tax.  That  is  to  say,  after  they  have  paid  all 
other  kinds  of  taxes,  on  property  which  they  possess,  they 
then  pay  an  average  of  a  hundred  thousand  dollars  apiece 
as  income  tax. 

The  simple  fact  is  this :  that  the  income  tax  revealed 
the  very  great  wealth  of  a  large  number  of  our  people  in 
figures  that  we  can  hardly  understand. 

If  you  think  that  is  not  a  menace,  you  must  remember 
that  the  wealth  of  two  or  three  of  our  men  put  together 
would  aggregate  an  amount  that  in  the  past  could  change 
the  form  of  government  of  almost  any  country  in  the 
world.  Only  a  few  years  ago  Russia  allowed  the  perse- 
cution of  the  Jews  in  her  territory,  and  most  cruel  and 
bitter  was  the  suffering.  A  little  later  Russia  and  Japan 
were  at  war,  and  Japan  needed  money.  A  Jewish  firm 
of  bankers,  the  Rothschilds,  financed  Japan  throughout 
the  war,  so  that  she  triumphed  over  Russia.  Don't  you 
think  those  Hebrew  bankers  rejoiced  in  their  power  to 
punish  the  persecutors  of  their  race? 

I  only  want  to  call  your  attention  to  the  fact  that  one 
banking  firm  was  big  enough  to  change,  potentially,  the 
relative  positions  of  two  of  the  greatest  nations  in  the 
world.  One  firm  had  strength  enough  to  make  Japan 
triumphant  over  Russia.  There  is  a  menace  in  wealth 
such  as  that,  and  if  we  don't  know  it  to-day,  we  will  know 
it  later  unless  something  is  done ;  unless  some  law  is 

311 


Addresses  World's  Social  Progress  Congress 

passed  that  shall  mean  that  no  man  shall  be  allowed  to 
inherit  more  than  a  specified  amount. 

The  inheritance  tax  law  is  an  old  law.  Rome  had  it, 
and  Egypt  had  it  before  Rome.  England  gets  over  a  hun- 
dred million  a  year  out  of  it.  France  and  Germany  get 
sixty  or  seventy  million ;  and  nowhere  has  it  developed 
more  interest  in  its  workings  than  in  New  Zealand  and 
Australia.  America  has  had  it  for  nearly  a  hundred 
years.  In  Pennsylvania  first,  and  to-day  in  over  twenty 
States  there  is  an  inheritance  tax  law;  but  as  yet  our 
people  understand  it  very  little.  You  are  probably  more 
ignorant  of  it  than  you  ought  to  be,  and  probably  you 
don't  realize  how  significant  it  is. 

California  has  had  an  inheritance  tax  law  for  a  number 
of  years.  We  have  averaged  three  hundred  and  sixty 
thousand  dollars  a  year  from  that  source  for  fifteen  years, 
ending  in  1912.  Never  did  we  get  a  milHon  prior  to  1910. 
In  1911  I  took  the  matter  up  with  men  in  the  legislature, 
and  they  were  much  interested,  and  I  found  that  the  ex- 
cellent auditor  of  the  State,  Mr.  Nye,  was  unwilling  to 
have  the  law  changed;  but  at  last  he  did  agree  to  some 
changes.  Prior  to  that  we  began  at  ten  thousand  dollars 
exemption,  and  then  taxed  at  the  rate  of  a  half  of  one 
per  cent  on  the  estate,  and  graded  the  tax  up  from  that  to 
three  per  cent  on  five  hundred  thousand  dollars.  I  said 
that  it  was  very  unfair  to  tax  a  widow  on  her  second  ten 
thousand.  When  everything  is  so  costly  the  State  has 
no  business  to  touch  so  small  an  amount;  and  I  asked 
that  we  exempt  twenty-five  thousand  dollars.  The  legis- 
lature did  exempt  twenty-four  thousand  dollars,  and  since 
1911  we  have  exempted  that  amount.  So  you  may  take 
comfort;  if  you  have  only  twenty-four  thousand  dollars 
of  assets,  and  your  death  should  occur,  your  family  will 
not  pay  one  dollar,  and  if  you  have  ninety-six  thousand 

312 


Taxation  and  Social  Progress 

dollars  of  assets,  and  you  leave  a  widow  and  three  minor 
children  and  a  will  that  divides  the  property  equally 
among  the  four,  no  one  of  them  will  pay  one  dollar  of  in- 
heritance tax.  That,  of  course,  cuts  off  some  revenue; 
but  in  1911  we  changed  so  that  instead  of  grading  up  to 
three  per  cent,  we  advanced  to  five  per  cent;  and  we 
promptly  got  in  more  income  with  that  slight  change,  even 
though  we  lost  on  the  small  estates.  One  estate  settled 
in  San  Francisco  under  the  new  law,  gave  us  $250,000  to- 
wards the  funds  of  the  State,  and  under  the  old  three  per 
cent  it  would  have  been  only  $126,000. 

I  was  very  much  dissatisfied  with  the  law  as  passed  in 
1911.  I  wanted  it  to  grade  up  to  five  per  cent  on  five 
hundred  thousand  dollars,  and  then,  instead  of  stopping, 
have  the  tax  graduated  a  bit  higher  up.  I  could  not  see 
why  the  graduation  theory  should  not  continue  in  the 
higher  figures  and  the  tax  rate  on  an  estate  of  a  million 
should  not  be  higher  than  on  half  a  million,  and  on  fifty 
million  more  than  on  five  million.  We  have  at  least  two 
concerns  in  California  that  have  assets  in  the  neighbor- 
hood of  a  hundred  million  each,  one  belongs  to  a  man 
ninety  years  of  age,  a  foreigner,  and  the  other  to  a  non- 
resident. We  have  wealth  here  that  we  have  not  thought 
of,  and  we  have  wronged  our  people  that  California  has 
not  gotten,  under  our  laws,  a  larger  proportion  of  that 
wealth ;  that  when  such  men  die  we  do  not  get  a  due  pro- 
portion of  these  assets  for  the  people  of  this  State. 

I  would  like  to  call  your  attention  to  the  fact  that  in 
1913  it  became  very  much  easier  to  get  a  change  in  the 
law  than  in  1911,  for  already  there  had  been  some  evi- 
dences of  the  beneficial  working  of  the  1911  law,  and 
quite  easily  we  got  the  legislature  to  advance  the  rate 
so  that  now  it  is  five  per  cent  on  five  hundred  thousand 
dollars ;  seven  and  one-half  per  cent  between  five  hundred 

313 


Addresses  World's  Social  Progress  Congress 

thousand  dollars  and  a  half  a  million,  and  ten  per  cent  on 
all  over  a  million.  Now  that  is  going  to  have  results 
from  this  time  on.  That  law  came  into  eftect  on  the  thir- 
teenth day  of  August,  1913;  and  the  sixteenth  day  of 
August,  three  days  later,  there  died  a  man  in  southern 
California  worth  nearly  ten  millions.  You  didn't  know 
we  had  so  rich  a  man?  He  probably  made  his  wealth 
north  of  us,  but  for  reasons  I  would  not  dare  to  suggest, 
he  lived  south  of  Tehachapi. 

We  have  got,  in  the  last  few  weeks,  $480,000  out  of 
that  estate,  and  we  would  have  got  much  less  if  the  man 
had  died  one  week  earlier,  because  the  new  law  taking 
seven  and  one-half  per  cent  would  not  have  worked.  He 
had  a  very  large  family,  and  the  property  was  divided 
between  the  children,  and  I  think  no  one  of  them  came 
quite  up  to  the  million ;  and  yet  we  got  practically  a  half- 
million  dollars  to  reduce  the  taxes  of  the  people  of  the 
State,  or  prevent  larger  taxation,  which  would  otherwise 
have  been  necessary. 

I  want  you  to  like  that  law  and  believe  in  it.  You  can 
all  exercise  an  influence  and  see  that  this  law  has  a  large 
working  out,  and  when  it  has,  then  our  taxes  will  be 
very  materially  reduced  all  over  the  State. 

I  want  to  give  you  an  illustration  or  two  of  how  things 
have  worked.  We  have  had  a  good  many  cases  where  we 
have  rejoiced  over  the  amounts  of  money  that  we  have 
secured  under  the  inheritance  tax  law  in  the  past.  A 
while  ago  two  hundred  thousand  dollars  were  needed  for 
a  certain  public  building,  but  the  funds  were  low,  and 
every  one  rejoiced  when  they  remembered  that  we  were 
going  to  get  two  hundred  and  fifty  thousand  dollars  out 
of  a  certain  estate ;  and  we  did  get  it.  Out  of  the  Baldwin 
property  we  expected  to  get  two  hundred  and  fifty  thou- 
sand dollars,  but  we  did  get  three  hundred  and  thirty 

314 


Taxation  and  Social  Progress 

thousand  dollars  out  of  that  estate,  and  the  administrator, 
a  few  weeks  ago,  reported  his  distribution  and  winding 
up  of  the  estate,  in  which  he  had  distributed  thirty-six  mil- 
lion dollars  from  the  Baldwin  estate  to  the  heirs.  And 
we,  the  people  of  California,  got  three  hundred  and  thirty 
thousand  dollars,  and  we  were  mean-spirited  enough  to 
glory  in  the  fact  that  we  got  that  much.  At  the  time  of 
E.  J.  Baldwin's  death,  the  estate  was  appraised  at  ten 
million  dollars.  It  did  grow  in  value  after  that,  though 
it  was  presumably  worth  more  than  the  value  fixed  at 
that  time.  Remember  that  we,  the  people  of  the  State, 
got  only  three  hundred  and  thirty  thousand  dollars,  and 
ask  yourselves  who  made  that  ten  million  dollars  ?  That 
is  the  question  I  want  to  ask.  The  State  must  do  right. 
The  State,  just  because  it  has  the  power,  dare  not  push 
out  its  hand  and  grab  unworthily.  It  must  do  right ;  but 
it  must  do  right  by  the  people  of  the  State  as  well  as  do 
right  by  the  heirs  of  great  wealth. 

Who  made  the  Baldwin  ten  miUion  dollars?  Baldwin 
acquired  many  acres  just  out  of  Pasadena,  at  a  few  cents 
an  acre,  decades  ago.  He  had  acquired  thirty-two  hun- 
dred acres  close  to  Los  Angeles  for  a  song  on  a  mort- 
gage long  ago.  That  thirty-two  hundred  acre  property 
was  sold  a  year  ago  for  six  million  dollars.  What  did 
Baldwin  do  with  those  acres  ?  Improve  them ;  make  them 
valuable  by  the  dollars  he  put  into  them?  No.  I  went 
out  to  see  the  ranches  the  other  day,  and  there  was  the 
same  old  rusty  barn  that  was  there  decades  ago.  I  don't 
think  you  can  find  five  thousand  dollars  worth  of  improve- 
ments on  the  place.  And  the  other  big  property,  I  re- 
member a  cottage  and  a  few  pretty  little  things;  but 
there  was  practically  nothing  done  on  either  property. 
And  those  were  among  his  main  assets. 

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Now,  then,  who  made  the  value  that  centered  in  those 
ranches?  Baldwin  didn't  make  it.  If  Baldwin  had  ac- 
quired the  same  number  of  acres  down  in  one  of  the 
South  American  republics  where  there  was  no  stable  gov- 
ernment, what  would  the  value  of  that  property  have 
been  ?  Practically  nothing.  But  because  we  have  a  stable 
government,  a  civilized  community,  good  laws,  and  be- 
cause God  has  given  us  this  rich  soil  and  glorious  sun- 
shine, there  is  value  here;  and  mainly  because  a  million 
people  from  all  over  the  world  liked  this  country  of  ours 
and  came  and  settled  around  these  two  great  ranches  of 
Baldwin's ;  because  they  built  homes  and  blocks  of  stores 
in  town  all  around  his  property,  it  came  to  have  great 
value.  We  the  people  of  the  State,  made  that  ten  milHon 
dollars,  or  at  any  rate,  nine-tenths  of  it;  made  the  value 
that  is  in  the  Baldwin  property,  and  we  were  false  to  the 
people  of  the  State  when  we  accepted  only  three  hundred 
and  thirty  thousand  dollars,  and  turned  over  nine  and  two- 
thirds  millions  to  people  who  didn't  make  it  at  all.  (Ap- 
plause. ) 

In  Los  Angeles,  the  estate  of  a  woman  was  admin- 
istered a  few  years  ago  worth  a  million  and  a  half,  and 
California  got  thirty-five  thousand  dollars.  She  didn't 
make  that  valuable  property;  the  population  made  it. 
Robinson  Crusoe  lived  on  an  island  that  was  undoubtedly 
rich  in  soil  and  productive,  and  had  great  inherent  value ; 
but  you  never  heard  of  an  advance  in  real  estate  on  his 
island,  not  even  when  Friday  came.  But  if  a  hundred 
thousand  people  had  come  to  Crusoe's  island,  then  there 
would  have  been  great  value  in  it.  Folks  make  value. 
Every  child  in  New  York  adds  to  the  value  of  real  estate 
in  New  York.  So  in  Los  Angeles,  every  new  comer,  and 
every  child  born  adds  to  the  value  of  real  estate.  If  you 
took  two  hundred  and  fifty  thousand  people  away,  you 

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would  find  a  very  great  reduction  of  values  in  Los  An- 
geles or  San  Francisco.  Take  away  half  your  population 
here,  and  property  will  go  down  at  once.  Folks  make 
value,  and  because  they  make  value,  in  our  laws,  from 
this  time  forward,  we  are  bound  to  recognize  them  and 
their  rights,  as  we  have  never  fully  done  in  the  past. 

New  York  State  has  been  getting  about  eight  million 
dollars  a  year  from  the  inheritance  tax.  But  an  accident 
occurred  on  the  ocean;  the  Titanic  went  down,  and  with 
it  many  men  of  wealth;  and  it  was  estimated  that  New 
York  would  get  from  their  estates  about  twenty  million 
dollars.  One  man  died  of  great  wealth,  a  world-known 
name,  and  he  left  as  his  one  principal  heir  a  slender, 
gentle-looking  boy  of  twenty-one,  Vincent  Astor,  a  young 
man,  as  we  are  told,  of  good  impulses  and  generous  char- 
acter. He  has  had  placed  on  his  young  shoulders  a 
burden  of  something  Hke  a  hundred  millions  to  carry, 
and  there  isn't  one  of  you  but  that  feels  sorry  for  him. 
You  all  know  perfectly  well  that  if  he  had  inherited  a 
hundredth  part  of  that  amount,  or  less  than  that,  his 
chances  for  a  well-developed  manhood,  the  chances  for  a 
full  exercise  of  all  his  qualities  of  mind  and  body  would 
have  been  greater  than  they  now  are;  and  if  the  State 
or  the  Nation  had  the  rest  of  it,  it  would  be  just  that 
much  better  off.  It  is  a  big  question,  and  it  is  going  to 
affect  our  educational  and  moral  advancement.  This  is 
one  illustration ;  we  have  them  all  around. 

So,  all  around  us,  there  is  very  great  wealth,  passing 
down  from  father  to  son,  or  to  more  remote  heirs,  all 
the  time.  You  and  I  have  assumed  that  it  was  a  kind 
of  divine  law  that  provided  that  the  child  should  inherit 
from  the  father;  but  it  isn't.  It  is  a  good  law,  when 
fairly  regulated,  but  it  is  a  man-made  law.  A  good  law- 
yer will  tell  you  that  the  State  has  provided  the  whole 

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method  by  which  transfer  is  made,  and  by  which  a  child 
inherits  from  the  father;  and  the  State  has  always  made 
a  slight  tax,  and  later  a  somewhat  larger  tax.  The  State 
has  the  power  to  provide  how  property  shall  be  inherited, 
and  what  proportion  of  it  shall  go  to  son  and  daughter; 
and  the  only  question  the  State  has  to  face  now  is,  **What 
is  the  right  thing?  What  would  justice  mean?  What 
ought  to  be  done?"  I  stand  to-day  absolutely  in  favor 
of  all  due  encouragement  being  given  to  enterprise  and 
ability.  The  State's  duty  is  to  make  such  laws  as  shall 
help  men  to  do  business.  It  is  the  right  of  the  State,  and 
we  demand  of  the  State  or  Nation  that  it  shall  do  all  it 
can  to  help  along  the  prosperity  of  its  people;  and  if  a 
man  of  large  endowment  is  keen  enough  and  bright 
enough  to  make  and  gain,  give  him  a  chance,  as  long  as 
he  does  it  legitimately.  The  only  question  is,  when  this 
man  has  done  with  the  things  of  this  life ;  when  He  who 
made  him  has  spoken  again,  and  has  said,  ''Leave  your 
possessions  on  earth,"  then  the  question  is,  whether  the 
children  alone  shall  stand  by  the  bier.  Let  the  State's 
representatives  stand  there  also;  let  the  laws  determine 
what  proportion  shall  go  to  the  children,  and  what  pro- 
portion shall  come  to  the  State ;  but  the  division  must  be 
made  in  righteousness  and  fairness. 

There  is,  in  this  country  of  ours,  in  this  State  of  ours, 
an  old  man  who  came  here  long  ago  from  another  coun- 
try. I  saw  him  at  the  depot  a  few  years  ago,  and  he  was 
than  past  eighty  years  of  age,  and  he  is  still  living.  And 
that  man,  it  is  said,  possesses  property  in  California  that 
will  allow  him  to  drive  his  flocks  and  herds  from  San 
Diego  to  the  Oregon  line,  and  camp  every  night  on  his 
own  land.  He  has  huge  properties,  tremendous  ranches; 
some  mountainous,  and  some  of  the  best,  worth  hundreds 
of  dollars  an  acre.    That  man  acquired  property,  because 

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of  his  keenness,  all  over  the  State  in  vast  areas.  Let  us 
give  him  credit  for  it.  What  has  he  done  ?  He  has  kept 
his  flocks  and  herds  in  uncounted  numbers ;  but  nowhere, 
so  far  as  I  know,  has  there  been  any  marked  improvement 
on  his  lands.  But  nevertheless,  this  land  that  was  once 
worth  almost  nothing  is  immensely  valuable  to-day  some- 
how, and  the  somehow  we  ought  to  investigate.  Great 
value  has  come  to  that  land.  How  did  it  come  ?  Because 
ours  is  a  glorious  State,  and  the  people  flock  here  and  take 
up  their  little  farms  all  around  this  man's  properties,  and 
have  made  this  land  valuable,  and  he  is  the  gainer  by 
what  the  public  has  done  for  him.  He  will  go  to  his  re- 
ward. I  have  not  a  word  to  say  against  him.  I  do  not 
know  that  he  ever  acquired  an  acre  unlawfully.  What  I 
plead  for  is  that  our  people  in  our  State,  who  made  the 
greater  part  of  his  gain,  shall  come  in  for  some  reasonable 
proportion  of  that  vast  property,  which  is  presumably 
worth  not  less  than  a  hundred  millions.  Am  I  wrong? 
If  I  am,  I  don't  want  the  State  to  get  it;  but  if  I  am 
right,  I  want  the  people  of  the  State  to  wake  up  and  say 
that  we  have  rights  that  we  have  slept  upon,  and  demand 
our  share  of  the  great  wealth  that  we  have  helped  to 
make,  when  the  man  who  has  accumulated  it  has  passed 
beyond. 

I  have  long  letters  in  my  possession  from  a  man  who, 
in  the  city  in  which  he  lives,  has  a  private  art  gallery 
which  he  lets  the  public  see.  I  was  invited  to  visit  that 
art  gallery.  I  didn't  want  to  go,  and  I  will  tell  you  why. 
That  man  sent  me  a  newspaper  clipping  from  a  San 
Francisco  paper,  finding  fault  with  an  address  which  I 
had  made,  similar  to  this  that  I  am  now  making;  and  in 
that  letter  he  labored  with  me,  page  after  page,  to  show 
me  that  I  was  wrong;  that  great  wealth  in  the  hands  of 
the  few  was  a  blessing  to  the  people  at  large,  who  didn't 

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Addresses  World* s  Social  Progress  Congress 

themselves  know  how  to  acquire  such  wealth.  He  sent 
me  a  page  from  the  San  Francisco  Chronicle  with  a  pic- 
ture of  this  man  and  the  statement  that  he  owned  a  mil- 
lion acres  of  California  land,  as  if  that  were  to  his  credit. 
I  went  to  the  Attorney  General  of  this  State ;  I  said,  "See 
here,  this  is  what  this  man  owns ;  tell  me,  isn't  that  land 
worth  about  a  hundred  dollars  an  acre  on  an  average?" 
He  said,  'There  is  a  good  deal  of  redwood,  some  of  the 
best  timber  land  of  California.  Yes,  it  must  be  worth  an 
average  of  one  hundred  dollars  an  acre."  A  hundred  mil- 
lion dollars  worth  of  land  in  this  State  held  by  a  non- 
resident, because  our  laws  allowed  him  to  come  in  and 
grab  what  belonged  to  the  State. 

Take  this  fact.  I  was  in  San  Francisco  in  the  absence 
of  the  governor,  and  it  was  my  duty  to  welcome  a  good 
roads  convention  a  few  years  ago.  At  that  convention 
there  were  representatives  from  Mexico  to  Alaska,  and 
from  British  Columbia  came  the  treasurer  of  that  prov- 
ince. He  said,  "We,  in  British  Columbia,  appropriated 
four  million  dollars  for  good  roads  last  year,  and  this 
year  we  have  set  aside  another  four  million  dollars."  I 
knew  the  population  of  British  Columbia  was  less  than 
that  of  San  Francisco  or  Los  Angeles.  I  hunted  him  up, 
and  I  said,  "Tell  me,  what  do  you  mean  when  you  give 
those  figures  ?  How  do  you  get  the  four  million  dollars  ? 
You  didn't  bond  the  province?"  "Oh,  no,"  he  said.  "But 
your  taxes  are  not  enormous  ?"  "Oh,"  he  said,  "we  have 
hardly  any  taxes  at  all  in  British  Columbia.  We  lease  our 
agricultural  lands,  and  our  timber  lands  and  our  mineral 
lands,  and  this  year  we  will  get  fifteen  million  dollars 
rental."  Meanwhile,  California,  by  its  unwisdom,  turns 
over  to  a  single  owner,  a  million  acres  of  land,  and  lets 
him  pay  for  it  at  the  rate  of  about  $2.50  per  acre. 

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Taxation  and  Social  Progress 

Do  you  charge  me  with  being  a  Henry  George  man,  a 
single-taxer ?  Oh,  well,  if  you  did,  I  could  stand  it;  but 
I  am  not.  But  I  am  profoundly  thankful  that  God  gave 
Henry  George  to  the  world. 

Do  you  think  that  I  am  verging  on  socialism?  I  am 
not  a  socialist.  There  is  a  country  in  this  world  which  is 
very  strongly  socialist,  yet  they  have  never  got  into  power 
in  that  country.  If  they  had  been  in  power ;  if  socialism 
instead  of  imperialism  had  controlled  Germany,  there 
would  be  no  war  in  Europe  to-day ;  but  I  am  not  a  social- 
ist. I  am  a  good  many  removes  from  it ;  but  I  learn  from 
everything;  from  Henry  George  and  from  socialism,  and 
I  aim  to  do  what  one  man  may  do  to  help  bring  about  bet- 
ter conditions  that  will  help  those  who  most  need  the  help 
of  great  wealth  to  get  their  fair  share  of  what  is  theirs. 

I  am  glad  to  talk  to  you  people  this  afternoon  on  this 
subject  because  I  believe  that  each  one  of  you  will  go 
back  to  your  own  localities  and  spread  this  doctrine.  I 
gave  this  address  at  the  commencement  exercises  of  one 
of  our  colleges  some  time  ago,  and  a  great  many  million- 
aires who  had  had  to  do  with  the  origin  of  that  school 
and  were  on  its  Board  of  Trustees,  were  there,  and  a 
friend  of  mine  afterward  inquired  whether  they  agreed 
with  the  main  sentiment,  and  strange  to  say,  every  one 
of  them  said  that  it  was  justice.  Wealth  would  practi- 
cally lose  nothing,  for,  if  such  a  law  were  in  effect,  inside 
of  twenty  years  wealth  of  the  Hving  would  pay  but  a 
little  in  current  expenses.  A  legitimate  inheritance  tax 
would  relieve  them  as  well  as  other  tax  payers,  and  they 
would  not  have  to  pay  it  until  after  they  were  done 
with   it. 

Ex-President  Roosevelt — and  I  dare  say  to  you  that  he 
still  lives  and  sometimes  writes — he  said  to  me  once, 
"Some  day  there  will  be  a  law  that  will  provide  that  no 

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Addresses  World's  Social  Progress  Congress 

man  shall  inherit  more  than  a  given  amount;  the  rest 
shall  go  to  the  State." 

John  Stuart  Mill  goes  farther  than  I  have  gone  in  any 
word  that  I  have  said,  and  his  is  a  name  to  conjure  with; 
for  Mill  says  that  "while  there  is  some  reason  in  a  child 
inheriting  from  a  father,  that  there  is  no  reason  whatever 
for  collateral  inheritance.  Just  because  some  one  who 
never  saw  the  wealthy  man  turns  out  to  be  the  nearest, 
though  a  remote  relative,  is  no  reason  at  all  why  he  should 
become  the  possessor  of  his  wealth."  He  works  out 
a  scheme  that  provides  that  all  that  any  man  may  inherit 
shall  always  be  a  little  less  than  half  a  million.  I  know 
you  would  be  grieved  to  think  of  a  man  starting  out  in 
life  with  only  half  a  million.  A  banker,  who  is  worth 
some  tens  of  millions,  complained  in  my  presence  that  the 
time  was  coming  when  a  man  couldn't  leave  more  than 
half  a  million  to  any  one  of  his  children.    Alas,  how  sad ! 

I  am  glad  that  I  have  had  this  hearing,  but  I  shall  re- 
joice the  more  if  you  will  go  home  and  teach  these  doc- 
trines to  others. 


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Chapter  XXVIII. 
THE  KEY  TO  SOCIAL  PROGRESS. 

BY    CHARLES    S.    GARDNER. 

Being  just  at  the  end  of  a  twenty-seven-hundred-mile 
journey,  I  am  very  much  impressed  with  the  distance 
which  I  had  to  cover  to  reach  here.  I  find  in  this  region 
of  the  country  an  intense  feehng  in  regard  to  these 
social  questions,  which  is  very  grateful  to  my  heart.  Per- 
haps it  is  characteristic  of  your  western  life  that  you 
should  be  intense,  and  that  the  pressure  should  be  high; 
but  I  am  convinced  that  the  progress  which  this  congress 
forecasts  is  going  to  need  a  high  pressure  of  steam  to 
carry  it  through,  and  the  higher  the  pressure,  the  better. 
I  felt  so  this  morning  particularly,  when  I  listened  to  that 
magnificent  address  from  one  of  the  men  active  in  your 
prison  life,  and  have  felt  it  in  several  of  the  other  great 
addresses  that  I  have  had  the  pleasure  of  Hstening  to. 

Every  student  of  social  movements  to-day  will  first 
seek  a  standpoint,  a  point  of  view,  from  which  he  can 
survey  the  whole  field  of  social  movements  in  order  to  get 
them  in  their  truest  relation,  and  understand  and  appreci- 
ate most  broadly  their  significance,  a  point  of  view  which 
will  give  him  a  standpoint  from  which  he  can  best  evaluate 
the  different  movements  which  are  pressing  for  our  loy- 
alty and  our  aid. 

The  true  point  of  view  from  which  to  consider  all  these 
things  is  that  of  the  child.  What  does  it  mean  for  the 
child?  That  is  the  question  which  every  social  reformer 
and  every  social  revolutionist  must  consider ;  for  I  got  the 
impression  from  some  of  the  things  I  heard  that  there 

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Addresses  World's  Social  Progress  Congress 

is  a  little  of  the  spirit  of  revolution  abroad  in  this  part  of 
the  country;  and  I  must  say  that  I  am  not  entirely  out 
of  sympathy  with  it. 

What  we  want  to  know  always  with  regard  to  every 
movement  is  this:  What  does  it  mean  for  the  child?  I 
do  not  underestimate  at  all  the  importance  of  grown-up 
people,  or  the  significance  of  social  movements  with  ref- 
erence to  them ;  but  after  all,  the  movements  in  which  we 
are  engaged  look  so  far  ahead  that  they  are  not  going  to 
be  realized  in  a  day;  and  therefore  the  significant  point 
of  view,  the  point  of  view  from  which  one  can  see  the 
whole  territory  most  significantly,  is  that  of  the  child. 

I  love  to  look  at  it  from  this  point  of  view  also  because 
an  appeal  to-day,  made  in  the  name  of  the  child,  reaches 
the  hearts  of  more  people  than  any  other  appeal  that  can 
be  made.  Whatever  may  be  our  attitude  toward  children 
to-day,  one  thing  is  true;  I  think  that  as  they  grow 
fewer,  they  grow  more  precious.  There  was  never  any  age 
or  any  generation,  which  brought  forth  fewer  children 
than  this  one,  or  which  valued  the  children  more.  That 
is  a  paradox  worth  thinking  about. 

I  shall  not  take  your  time  to  discuss  the  nature  of  the 
child.  We  all  understand  that  the  child  is  simply  a  poten- 
tial personality ;  humanity  in  the  raw. 

The  child  is  undeveloped  and  has  to  be  shaped,  and  the 
shaping  process  takes  place  through  the  continual  play 
of  forces  upon  it  from  the  environment  in  which  it  lives. 
The  constant  interaction  of  the  growing  personality  upon 
its  environment  is  the  process  through  which  that  per- 
sonality is  developed.  We  have  debated  for  a  long  time 
whether  circumstances  made  men,  or  men  made  circum- 
stances ;  and  the  reason  why  that  question  is  such  a  per- 
petual one  and  cannot  be  solved,  is  that  both  positions  are 
true.     Circumstances  make  men;  and  at  the  same  time, 

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The  Key  to  Social  Progress 

men  are  making  the  circumstances.  The  environment,  in 
its  action  upon  life,  is  formative;  and  at  the  same  time 
and  through  the  very  same  process,  Hfe  is  formative  and 
creative  in  its  action  upon  the  environment. 

The  significant  thing  about  the  child  is  that  the  en- 
vironment does  the  work  first.  The  child  is  born  help- 
less; the  little  one  comes  into  the  world,  is  born  into  an 
environment,  which  it  had  no  share  in  making,  and  which 
must  begin  its  action  intensively  upon  it  from  the  moment 
it  opens  its  eyes  in  the  world.  The  very  first  things  it 
sees,  the  first  sounds  that  assault  its  little  ears,  are  the 
formative  processes  beginning  at  once  upon  the  young 
life ;  and  however  much  the  little  one  may  modify  his  en- 
vironment from  the  moment  he  begins  to  breathe  (for 
that  is  always  true ;  it  does  begin  to  modify  the  environ- 
ment the  moment  it  is  born — a  home  becomes  a  different 
sort  of  an  institution  from  the  moment  a  child  is  born 
into  it),  yet  nevertheless  that  modification  is  without  pur- 
pose, it  is  not  intelligent.  It  is  simply  instinctive ;  the 
child  does  not  make  its  environment  in  an  intelligent  or 
purposive  way,  whereas  the  environment  is  all  the  time 
conditioning  that  little  life  and  setting  the  limits  within 
which  it  must  develop.  It  is  very  important,  therefore, 
to  consider  what  sort  of  an  environment  the  child  is  born 
into. 

There  has  been  a  process  going  on  in  our  modern  life 
which  I  do  not  think  has  attracted  the  attention  of  social 
thinkers  and  workers  as  much  as  it  should,  by  any  man- 
ner of  means.  There  has  come  about,  in  these  later  days, 
almost  without  our  knowing  it,  a  very  radical  change  in 
the  relation  which  organized  society — the  great  society, 
the  state  and  the  whole  social  order — sustains  to  the  child. 

In  the  days  when  the  home  was  a  relatively  isolated, 
and  at  the  same  time  a  relatively  independent  institution ; 

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Addresses  World's  Social  Progress  Congress 

in  the  days  when  it  was  a  world  unto  itself,  economic  and 
civic,  the  outside  world  beyond  the  home  had  very  remote 
and  indirect  relations  with  the  child.  But  to-day,  what 
we  witness  is  this:  homes  no  longer  stand  comparatively 
isolated  and  relatively  independent,  but  are  brought  very 
close  together,  and  have  become  linked  up  in  a  very  com- 
plex and  intricate  social  order.  The  home  has  lost  its 
economic  independence  and  its  civic  semi-independence. 
One  by  one,  many  of  the  functions  that  used  to  be  per- 
fonued  in  it  have  been  transferred  to  outside  agencies. 
What  kinds  of  work  are  carried  on  in  the  home  to-day? 
Here  in  San  Francisco,  for  instance,  what  sorts  of  activ- 
ities, or  functions,  are  carried  on  in  the  home,  where  a 
family  lives  in  a  little  flat  on  the  tenth  floor  of  a  modern 
apartment  building  and  gets  its  meals  at  the  cafe  below  ? 
Almost  every  form  of  activity  that  was  once  carried  on  in 
the  home  has  been,  in  great  measure,  transferred  to  out- 
side institutions.  The  result  has  been  that  the  child  no 
longer  grows  in  a  little  garden  limited  to  itself,  called 
the  home;  but  almost  from  the  beginning  of  its  life  it 
finds  itself  thrust  out  into  the  great,  complex  life  of 
general  society.  The  state  and  the  outside  world — organ- 
ized society  is  coming  into  closer  and  closer  contact  with 
the  child,  both  directly  and  through  the  home.  But  what 
I  now  emphasize  is  the  direct  impact  of  organized  society 
upon  the  child.  Consequently  when  we  now  talk  about 
what  sort  of  an  environment  children  are  growing  up  in, 
we  are  bound  not  merely  to  consider  the  home,  but  also 
the  great  social  order  in  the  midst  of  which  the  child 
lives.     (Applause.) 

So  we  can't  solve  the  problem  of  the  child  by  working 
on  the  home  alone.  How  long  is  it  before  the  little  one 
is  taken  out  of  the  home  and  put  into  school,  or,  if  not 
into  school,  under  the  control  of  organized  society  ?    How 

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The  Key  to  Social  Progress 

long  is  it  before  it  is  thrust  out  into  the  factory?  And 
when  it  is  sent  neither  to  the  school  nor  the  factory,  how 
long  is  it  before  the  little  one,  as  it  toddles  out  of  the 
tenement  onto  the  street,  finds  itself  face  to  face  with  the 
great,  organized  society,  and  meets  the  representative  of 
that  society  in  the  person  of  the  uniformed  policeman? 

The  child  to-day  comes  in  contact  with  organized  soci- 
ety at  a  very  early  age.  Not  only  is  much  of  the  economic 
activity  that  used  to  be  centered  in  the  home,  removed 
from  the  home ;  but  the  educational  activity  has  been  also 
transferred.  The  child  is  sent  out  now,  before  it  is  old 
enough  to  go  alone,  with  its  nurse  to  the  kindergarten,  or 
some  other  school — too  often  in  order  that  the  mother 
may  get  rid  of  it.  Religious  education  also  has  gone  out 
of  the  home,  and  it  has  not  gone  anywhere  else,  either. 
It  has  left  the  home  and  found  no  other  abiding  place; 
and  the  result  is  that  we  are  bringing  up  a  generation  of 
children,  the  great  majority  of  whom  have  no  positive 
and  definite  religious  instruction  whatsoever. 

Now,  I  ask  you  to  think  with  me  a  little  while  very 
earnestly,  what  does  all  this  mean  for  the  child  in  its  rela- 
tion to  social  progress?  Evidently  it  is  a  question,  not 
only  of  the  home,  but  of  the  social  order  itself;  and  we 
must  look  at  the  social  order  from  this  point  of  view.  We 
must  ask  ourselves  about  it  and  study  it  from  the  stand- 
point of  the  little  one. 

In  the  first  place,  we  must  secure  for  every  child  a 
proper  home.  It  can  never  again  be  the  old-time  home. 
We  might  as  well  give  up  that  dream.  You  cannot  turn 
the  wheels  of  society  backward  into  the  period  of  the 
isolated  home ;  you  have  got  to  try  to  adapt  the  home  to 
the  modern  situation.  But  society  must  undertake  to 
secure  a  proper  home.    That  is  to  say,  the  child  must  have 

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Addresses  World's  Social  Progress  Congress 

a  place  which  is  a  real  home,  where  it  has  the  care  of 
a  real  motherhood  and  fatherhood. 

Some  time  ago  I  had  occasion  to  look  for  a  certain 
woman  whom  I  knew  wished  employment,  a  widow ;  and 
I  found  her  in  a  dark,  back  room  on  the  third  floor  of  a 
tenement.  She  was  ill,  largely  because,  as  a  widow,  she 
had  been  thrown  out  into  the  competitive  economic  life 
of  our  time,  with  a  child  to  care  for;  and  that  child  was 
a  fatal  handicap  upon  her.  She  couldn't  get  employment 
anywhere.  Why?  Because  she  was  tied  to  that  child, 
and  so  she  was  out  of  employment  and  slowly  starving 
to  death  because  her  mother  heart  refused  to  surrender 
the  child  to  a  public  institution. 

Now,  what  does  that  mean?  There  are  such  cases  by 
the  thousand  in  every  community.  It  means  that  society 
is  as  much  responsible  for  those  children  as  the  mother. 
(Applause.) 

The  change  which  I  have  described  in  the  relation  of 
the  child  to  society  means  that  society  must  take  over  a 
part  of  the  responsibility  for  the  little  ones.  I  make  a 
plea  this  afternoon  for  the  endowment  of  widowed  moth- 
erhood. That  ought  to  be  done;  we  cannot  and  should 
not  be  contented  with  any  program  short  of  that,  and 
every  widow  who  has  to  make  her  own  living  in  our 
present  social  order,  must  have  the  help  of  society  to  en- 
able her  to  perform  the  function  of  motherhood;  for  it 
is  a  fearful,  I  might  say  an  almost  diabolical,  alternative 
which  we  force  upon  the  widowed  mother  to-day — either 
to  give  up  her  child  and  sacrifice  her  motherhood,  or 
starve,  or  worse. 

I  make  a  plea  also  for  the  provision  of  a  proper 
home  for  the  child  so  that  it  may  not  only  have  mother- 
hood, but  fatherhood  also.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  there  are 
great  numbers  of  men  in  our  land  to-day,  who,  under  our 

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The  Key  to  Social  Progress 

competitive  system,  are  pressed  down  below  the  normal 
living  point,  and  cannot  provide  a  home;  they  cannot 
give  their  children  a  home.  Wages  are  too  low.  I  would 
like  to  have  you  tell  me  how  anybody  can  live  to-day  and 
rear  a  family  on  five  hundred  dollars  a  year.  May  be 
you  have  got  prices  down  out  here  to  the  point  where  it 
can  be  done;  but  where  I  live  it  is  impossible.  And  yet 
that  is  the  average  wage  of  the  working  man  to-day.  In 
America,  so  far  as  we  have  been  able  to  learn  by  statis- 
tics, the  average  laboring  man  has  to  live  on  five  hundred 
dollars  a  year  and  bring  up  his  family. 

What  is  the  result?  That  the  children  are  underfed; 
the  mother  is  forced  out  to  work  to  supplement  the  family 
income;  and  the  father  is  disheartened  and  discouraged 
and  very  frequently,  in  his  desperation,  forsakes  mother 
and  children. 

Here  we  come  squarely  up  against  the  obstruction  that 
we  come  up  against  from  whatever  direction  we  approach 
this  social  problem:  a  cruel  and  anti-Christian  industrial 
system.     (Applause.) 

You  may  study  it  and  tinker  at  it  as  much  as  you  please, 
but  you  can  never  cure  this  situation  until  you  take  this 
central  stronghold,  and  substitute  for  present  industrial 
conditions  an  economic  order  organized  according  to  the 
law  of  Jesus  Christ.  The  present,  unjust  industrial  sys- 
tem is  organized  from  the  bottom  to  the  top  on  an  anti- 
Christian  principle,  and  it  has  got  to  be  reconstructed 
from  the  foundation;  and  I  make  a  plea  for  this  recon- 
struction in  the  interest  of  the  child. 

A  thing  that  I  frequently  do  in  order  that  I  may  renew 
my  enthusiasm — that  it  may  have  a  sort  of  rebirth — is  to 
take  a  walk  through  some  of  the  tenement  house  or  slum 
districts  which  are  always  close  by  in  any  city,  and  see 
the  droves  of  little  children,  dirty  and  ragged  and  ignor- 

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Addresses  World's  Social  Progress  Congress 

ant,  swarming  in  the  streets.  If  the  angels  up  yonder  in 
heaven  don't  look  down  and  weep  over  that  situation,  they 
must  have  no  tears  to  shed  up  there.  There  is  the  great 
plague  spot  of  every  city,  the  slum;  that  is,  of  every  in- 
dustrial city.  In  studying  the  slum,  I  wish  you  would 
notice  how  it  always  goes  with  industry. 

All  around  the  slums  are  the  great  tenement  dis- 
tricts; and  in  these  wretched  dwelling  places,  if  we  can 
call  them  that — for  they  are  hardly  human  abodes — into 
or  near  to  these  districts  are  pressed  the  working  people, 
the  common  people,  the  poor ;  and  that  is  where  are  being 
reared  most  of  the  children  in  our  generation.  They  are 
swarming  around  that  great  plague  spot,  the  slum;  and 
they  are  slipping  by  thousands,  down,  down  into  its  dark 
depths. 

I  say  we  might  as.  well  attack  the  central  condition. 
The  industrial  order  which  brings  about  the  situation  has 
got  to  be  transformed  or  else  we  cannot  redeem  human 
society  and  save  the  children.  And  if  there  is  any  child 
worse  off  than  the  child  in  the  slum,  it  is  the  rare  child 
that  you  find  on  the  boulevards.  That  child  is  brought  up 
in  an  environment  which  is  just  as  powerful  in  forming 
its  mind  and  heart  on  a  wrong  model  and  in  cultivating 
in  its  soul  a  false  view  of  human  values,  as  the  child  down 
below.  One  of  the  strongest  appeals  that  can  be  made 
for  the  transformation  and  reorganization  of  our  whole 
economic  life  can  be  made  in  the  interest  of  the  unforttt- 
nate  rich. 

But  we  must  go  farther  than  that  in  taking  care  of  the 
children.  In  addition  to  the  fact  that  we  must  place  the 
child  in  a  healthful  environment  and  must  give  it  real 
fatherhood  and  motherhood,  we  have  got  to  give  it  the 
right  sort  of  an  education ;  we  have  got  to  give  all  of  them 
the  right  sort  of  an  education.     I  don't  know  what  the 

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The  Key  to  Social  Progress 

state  of  public  opinion  is  on  that  question  in  this  part  of 
the  country,  but  we  must  solemnly  dedicate  ourselves  to 
the  proposition  that  every  child  born  in  our  land  must 
have  an  education.  If  the  home  has  so  fallen  down  in 
its  function  that  it  is  no  longer  able  to  take  care  of  the 
situation,  then  the  state  must  come  to  the  rescue,  or  at 
any  rate  stand  behind  the  home  and  guarantee  that  negli- 
gence in  the  home  shall  not  forever  and  ever  handicap 
and  blight  the  growing  child.  For  the  child  is  a  social 
asset — one  which  may  very  easily  become  a  liability,  to  be 
sure ;  but  it  is  a  social  asset,  and  all  the  children,  ladies 
and  gentlemen,  are  your  children.  Let  us  remember  that 
all  the  children  are  our  children,  and  we  must  see  to  it 
that  every  one  of  them  has  as  much  education  as  by  a 
wise  handling  he  can  be  induced  to  take. 

Now,  it  doesn't  become  me  on  this  occasion,  I  am  sure, 
to  discuss  the  whole  question  of  education.  But  I  wish 
to  say  one  or  two  things.  In  my  judgment  there  is  noth- 
ing that  needs  reform  more  than  the  schools,  unless  it  be 
the  churches.  I  believe  I  will  put  the  churches  first,  be- 
cause I  have  found  in  my  contact  with  ministers  that  the 
average  minister  is  frequently  about  as  dense  a  man  as  I 
find  on  social  questions.  But  there  are  some  dense  ones 
in  the  schoolrooms,  too. 

We  need  an  education  that  is  adapted  to  child  nature. 
We  haven't  found  out  how  to  do  that  yet.  The  truth  is 
that  in  the  church  and  in  the  school  and  everywhere,  ex- 
cept in  industry,  the  shadow  of  the  Middle  Ages  is  still 
upon  us.  We  have  got  to  adapt  our  education  to  child 
nature,  and  learn  so  to  approach  the  child  in  the  educa- 
tional process  as  to  get  from  it  an  effective  response ;  and 
I  believe  it  is  possible  to  do  this.  But  I  go  farther  than 
that.  I  believe  that  we  are  coming  to  the  time  when  our 
educational  system  will  not  only  get  a  new  psychological 

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Addresses  World's  Social  Progress  Congress 

conception  of  its  work,  but  when  it  must  become  in  larger 
measure  a  system  of  vocational  guidance.  Now,  I  am 
not  going  to  take  up  the  question,  which  has  been  dis- 
cussed pro  and  con,  of  vocational  education.  That  is 
not  the  proposition  that  I  am  discussing.  My  proposition 
is  that  we  need  vocational  guidance.  The  truth  is  that 
modern  society  has  become  enormously  complex,  and  the 
average  boy  or  girl  stumbles  around  in  this  vast  mass  of 
specialized  activity  without  being  able  to  find  the  particu- 
lar place  where  he  or  she  belongs.  And  in  large  measure 
this  is  one  of  the  contributory  causes  of  crime.  I  am  sure 
it  is  partly  the  explanation  of  the  weakening,  the  break- 
down almost,  of  religious  faith  in  modern  people.  A  man 
who  finds  himself  by  a  series  of  accidents,  misplaced  in 
the  world,  not  properly  related  to  life,  not  dove-tailed  into 
that  particular  function  where  he  can  find  himself  at 
home ;  the  man  who  is  misplaced  in  this  way  can  never 
be  happy  or  contented,  and  can  never  be  of  the  most  use 
to  society.  He  is  likely  to  be  cut  adrift  and  finally  land 
in  prison.  At  any  rate  there  is  no  question  but  that  the 
misplacing  of  men  in  our  modern  life  has  contributed 
greatly  to  the  weakening  of  religious  faith.  How  can  a 
man  believe  that  this  is  a  divinely  ordered  world  when  he 
finds  his  own  life  very  badly  ordered  and  adjusted  to  the 
whole  situation  ?  Put  a  man  where  he  belongs ;  where  he 
fits;  where  he  is  conscious  that  he  has  a  field  for  the 
development  of  his  natural  capacity,  a  field  where  he  can 
express  himself ;  and  it  is  very  reasonable  for  that  man  to 
feel  that  there  is  a  moral  order.  He  himself  fits  into  it, 
and  he  can  see  some  rationality  in  it ;  but  a  man  misplaced 
cannot  easily  do  so.  In  this,  vast  modern  life  that  we  are 
living,  there  is  nothing  much  more  important  than  that 
the  boys  and  girls  should  be  educated  with  a  view  to 
ascertaining  what  their  special  capacities  are,  that  they 

ZZ2 


The  Key  to  Social  Progress 

may  be  properly  helped  to  find  and  place  themselves,  and 
thus  make  their  best  contribution  to  the  world. 

But  while  I  am  talking  about  social  transformation  as 
the  Hne  along  which  we  must  move  in  taking  care  of 
our  children,  this  paradox  forces  itself  upon  my  mind ; 
the  children  are  about  our  only  means  of  bringing  about 
the  social  transformation  that  we  need.  The  work  must 
be  done  through  the  children.  Do  you  know,  I  thank  God 
at  every  remembrance  of  this  fact,  that  while  this  great, 
organized  society  is  taking  the  little  ones  and  putting  its 
stamp  upon  them,  and  the  process  of  social  assimilation, 
and  assimilation  to  false  ideals  and  standards,  too,  is  go- 
ing on,  yet,  please  God,  you  cannot  run  a  new  generation 
into  the  mold  of  the  old  completely ;  and  the  new  gener- 
ation is  our  hope.  The  new  generation  will  be  the  one 
that  will  save  human  society.  The  children  themselves 
are  growing  up  to-day  as  they  never  have  before  in  the 
wide  world,  discontented;  but  I  love  the  discontent  of 
this  age. 

I  thank  God  that  we  are  discontented.  If  there  is  any- 
body I  feel  sorry  for  down  in  my  heart,  it  is  for  the  man 
or  woman  who  looks  on  this  world  to-day  and  likes  it  as 
it  is.  I  am  not  a  pessimist ;  this  is  the  best  world  we  have 
ever  had;  that  is  the  reason  why  we  are  discontented. 
But  the  man  or  woman  who  can  look  on  the  facts  we 
face  to-day,  and  can  see  our  social  situation  as  it  really 
is  and  be  contented  with  it,  is  one  for  whom  I  feel  sorry. 

Here  is  where  we  touch  the  function  of  the  Church 
in  relation  to  the  whole  situation.  The  function  of  the 
Church  in  our  modern  life  is  to  spiritualize  and  direct 
the  discontent  of  our  age.  That  is  our  business  as 
preachers.  This  discontent  is  like  dynamite;  it  could 
easily  wreck  human  society.  We  see  it  cropping  out  in 
anarchistic  forms;  and  let  me  tell  you  now,  that  if  the 

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Addresses  World's  Social  Progress  Congress 

discontent  of  this  age  is  not  taken  hold  of  by  the  Church 
and  directed  and  spiritualized  and  controlled  to  high  eth- 
ical ends,  it  is  going  to  blow  up  the  whole  fabric. 

Now  that  is  our  function  as  a  church,  and  that  is  the 
reason  I  despise  the  preacher  that  is  contented  with  the 
situation. 

Christianity  was  born  into  a  world  of  discontent,  into 
a  world  in  which  one  social  order  was  going  to  pieces  be- 
cause it  was  unethical  from  the  foundation  up ;  and  that 
new  Christian  movement  born  in  Galilee  took  over  the 
discontented  minds  and  directed  them  to  a  great  spiritual 
ideal;  and  for  a  while  saved  the  situation,  until  it  sur- 
rendered to  the  world.  We  are  bom  into  a  world  very 
much  like  that;  an  age  of  discontent,  an  age  when  the 
social  order  is  going  to  pieces,  and  we  are  groping  for 
new  ideals,  and  a  new  organization  of  society.  And  it 
is  the  function  of  our  divine  religion  to  show  men  that 
while  this  discontent  is  well  founded,  it  should  be  guided 
towards  the  kingdom  of  God ;  and  the  kingdom  means  a 
new  industrial  order ;  it  means  a  new  political  order  and 
the  redemption  of  human  society  through  and  through. 

I  believe  with  all  my  heart  that  the  Church  of  Jesus 
Christ  is  yet  going  to  rise  to  the  situation  and  perform 
this  function.  I  am  satisfied  that  if  she  does  not  perform 
this  function  as  an  instrument  for  the  realization  of  the 
kingdom  of  God,  the  Lord  of  the  Church  will  cast  it  aside 
as  worthless  and  work  out  his  purpose  through  some 
other  instrument.  But  I  believe  the  Church  will  rise  to 
its  opportunity;  and  may  I  say  to  you  that  I  have  the 
happy  privilege  of  instructing  in  these  matters,  every 
year,  a  class  of  ministers  nearly  as  large  as  this  group  of 
people  here.  They  are  going  out  to  be  the  pastors  of  the 
churches;  and  into  their  minds,  by   God's  help,   I   am 

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The  Key  to  Social  Progress 

planting,  to  the  best  of  my  ability,  a  new  conception  of 
human  progress.     (Applause.) 

The  Church  to-day  is  too  much  engaged  in  the  business 
of  saving  itself.  Let  me  say  this  in  conclusion;  the 
Church  will  save  itself  by  saving  the  world,  and  it  will 
save  the  world  in  a  large  way  only  as  it  saves  organized 
society.  You  can't  save  the  world  by  picking  out  indi- 
viduals from  the  wreck ;  you  can't  do  it.  For  do  we  not 
see  the  fact  before  us  continually — isn't  the  fact  forcing 
itself  upon  the  vision  of  men,  that  the  ungodly,  anti- 
Christian  order  is  grinding  out  wreckage  faster  than  we 
can  repair  it  ?  It  is  by  saving  the  whole  machine  that  we 
shall  best  be  able  to  save  the  wastage  and  wreckage  of 
human  life. 


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Chapter  XXIX. 
DEMOCRACY  AND  SOCIAL  PROGRESS. 

BY  JOHN  R.  HAYNES. 

Nearly  two  thousand  years  ago  a  Palestinian  laboring 
man,  called  Jesus,  the  Christ,  taught  his  followers  to  love 
their  enemies.  To-day,  ten  million  men,  calling  them- 
selves after  the  Carpenter,  Christians,  are  drenching  Eu- 
rope with  the  blood  of  fellow-Christians.  Two  thousand 
years  ago  this  Son  of  the  common  people  announced  that 
he  had  come  into  the  world  in  order  that  all  men  might 
have .  life  more  abundantly.  Yet  to-day,  in  so-called 
Christian  America,  millions  of  men  and  women  and  little 
children  are  rotting  in  the  city  slums. 

Dr.  Josiah  Strong,  when  asked  the  question,  "Is  Chris- 
tianity a  failure?"  is  quoted  as  replying,  "I  don't  know; 
it's  never  been  tried." 

Fortunately,  such  anomalies  as  we  witness  to-day,  can- 
not continue  permanently.  Casuistry  and  word  juggling 
cannot  reconcile  such  contradictions  in  this  scientific  age 
when  men  demand  honesty  and  candor  in  their  thinking. 
For  many  centuries  one  principle  has  been  preached  and 
occasionally  practiced  by  a  few  individuals  in  their  per- 
sonal lives,  while  another  principle  diametrically  contrary 
and  antagonistic  has  characterized  the  whole  framework 
of  our  human  institutions,  political,  religious,  educational, 
and  economic.  The  words  of  Jesus,  "Love  your  enemies," 
are  heard  often  enough  and  sometimes  practiced  in  our 
personal  relations;  but  in  our  national  thinking,  patriot- 
ism, meaning  by  that  term  our  country's  glory  and  wel- 
fare as  opposed  to  all  others,  is  the  dominant  note.     Pu- 

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Democracy  and  Social  Progress 

pils  in  German  schools  are  made  proud  by  the  stories  of 
German  victories  over  French  armies,  and  pupils  in 
French  schools  are  thrilled  with  the  accounts  of  French 
victories  over  German  armies.  American  children  find  in 
their  school  histories  lengthy  recitals  of  the  battles  of 
Grant  and  Lee,  and  go  forth  quite  ignorant  of  the  great 
constructive  benefactors  of  our  country,  the  scientists,  the 
poets,  the  inventors,  the  Howes,  the  Fultons,  the  Mc- 
Dowells, and  the  Thoreaus.  "Love  our  enemies  ?"  Yes ; 
but  we  must  ^get  the  advantage  of  them  in  trade ;  we 
must  build  custom  houses  and  force  them,  if  possible,  to 
buy  our  goods  without  our  buying  their  goods.  We  must 
build  larger  battleships  "for  defense"  against  our  ene- 
mies; so  that  they  can  build  larger  battleships  "for  de- 
fense" against  us.  So  we  Christians  accumulate  arma- 
ments so  great  that  their  maintenance  during  times  of 
peace  requires  a  tax  burden  of  twenty-five  hundred 
million  dollars  a  year  and  finally  a  war  bursts  upon  us 
that  wrecks  our  civilization. 

Perhaps,  after  all,  Jesus  was  no  such  sentimental  vision- 
ary. Perhaps,  if  his  precepts  were  incorporated  into  the 
political  and  educational  framework  of  our  society,  it 
would  pay  in  dollars  and  cents. 

Personally,  we  love  our  neighbor;  on  Sunday,  pretty 
generally ;  but  on  Monday  the  whole  framework  and  char- 
acter of  our  industrial  system  necessitates  warfare  for 
supremacy  without  business  rivals.  The  pagan  motto 
that  competition  is  the  Hfe  of  trade,  completely  controls 
our  thinking  and  we  have  juggled  words  in  order  to  show 
that  business  competition  and  warfare  are  not  anti-Chris- 
tian. At  last,  however,  business  men  of  wide  vision  and 
large  experience  are  quite  generally  coming  to  the  opin- 
ion that  competition  is  the  death  of  trade  and  that  the  Hfe 

337 


Addresses  World's  Social  Progress  Congress 

of  trade  consists  not  in  competition,  but  in  co-operation. 
Jesus  may  not  have  been  so  poor  a  political  economist. 

The  regimentation  of  industry  due  to  steam  and  elec- 
tricity, together  with  the  exhaustion  of  the  supply  of 
free  land  in  the  rain  belt,  open  to  the  ambitious  laborer 
without  capital,  have  produced  a  temporary  stage  of 
private  economic  despotism.  Thirty  million  workers  in 
America  are  mostly  laboring  in  vast,  mobilized,  industrial 
armies.  The  privates,  mill  and  mine  workers  and  young 
children,  in  these  armies,  are  practically  slaves — wage 
slaves.  For  the  fact  as  to  the  existence  of  a  state  of 
slavery  or  a  state  of  freedom  is  not  determined  by  the 
benevolence  or  malevolence,  the  gentleness  or  the  cruelty 
of  the  master.  In  a  hundred  lands  and  eras,  slavery  has 
worn  as  many  garbs;  but  as  Abraham  Lincoln  once  re- 
marked, "The  essential  character  of  slavery  everywhere 
remains  the  same.  The  spirit  of  slavery  is  expressed  in 
these  words,  'You  labor  and  toil  and  produce  the  bread, 
and  ril  eat  it.'  "  Said  Vice  President  Marshall  recently, 
"The  cause  of  the  present  industrial  discontent  in  Amer- 
ica is  the  fact  that  the  worker  is  getting  only  about  one- 
fourth  of  what  he  produces."  That  the  worker,  under 
the  system  of  wage  slavery,  can  change  masters  from  day 
to  day  does  not  free  him  from  the  state  of  slavery.  His 
slavery  consists  in  the  fact  that  he  is  producing  bread  for 
others  to  eat,  he  getting  only  a  small  portion  of  the  total 
production. 

The  per  capita  wealth  of  the  nation  has  trebled  and 
quadrupled  since  1850.  This,  however,  does  not  mean 
that  the  average  man  is  any  better  off  now  than  then,  for 
wealth  is  enormously  more  unevenly  distributed  now  than 
then.  It  means  wealth  to  the  point  of  satiety  to  the  cap- 
tains in  the  industrial  army  and  to  the  idlers  outside  the 
army ;  but  to  the  privates  in  the  industrial  ranks,  it  means 

338 


Democracy  and  Social  Progress 

no  improvement  whatever;  in  fact,  the  condition  of  the 
average  worker  has  been  steadily  growing  worse  since 
1850.  While  the  average  per  capita  wealth  is  greater, 
the  wealth  of  the  average  man  is  less ;  that  is  to  say,  the 
poorer  fifty  per  cent  of  the  population  has  much  less 
wealth  to-day  than  had  the  poorer  fifty  per  cent  in  the 
days  of  free  land  in  the  rain  belt.  Moreover,  the  Amer- 
ican of  that  day  was  chiefly  a  country  dweller,  and  be- 
sides being  provided,  as  a  rule,  with  abundance  of  food, 
he  lived  in  the  open  air  and  sunshine.  Industrial  changes 
already  mentioned  and  operating  everywhere,  in  Europe 
as  well  as  America,  have  drawn  the  population  very 
largely  to  the  city.  The  economic  condition  of  the  aver- 
age American  worker  is  rapidly  deteriorating.  Since 
1896,  although  wages  have  nominally  increased  between 
twenty  per  cent  and  thirty  per  cent,  the  cost  of  life  neces- 
sities has  increased  between  sixty  per  cent  and  seventy 
per  cent.  The  passage  of  practically  each  twelve  months 
during  the  last  nineteen  years  has  been  marked  by  a  de- 
cided decrease  in  the  purchasing  power  in  life  necessities 
of  the  average  laborer's  weekly  pay  envelope.  The  Rus- 
sell Sage  Foundation  investigators  found  that  the  amount 
required  to  maintain  a  family  of  five  in  normal  health 
and  efficiency  ranged  from  $760  to  $900  per  year,  accord- 
ing to  locality.  The  average  American  worker  receives 
only  about  $500  per  year.  This  means  two  things :  First, 
the  mother  and  children  must  go  to  work  to  piece  out 
the  family  income ;  and  second,  that  the  family  must  Hve 
below  the  standard  of  normal  efficiency.  Prof.  Scott 
Nearing,  of  the  University  of  Pennsylvania,  after  years 
of  investigation,  finds  that  the  average  American  child  is 
under-nourished. 

Jesus  said  that  he  came  in  order  that  the  people  might 
have   life   more   abundantly;   but  present   conditions   in 

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Addresses  World's  Social  Progress  Congress 

America  render  it  absolutely  impossible  for  the  multi- 
tude to  live  abundant  lives.  The  working  man  sees  his 
own  children  stunted  and  pale,  while  those  of  the  more 
favored  are  well  nourished.  He  sees  the  industrial  cap- 
tain, or  the  wealthy  idler,  indulging  their  fancies  in  Ital- 
ian villas,  while  he  attempts  to  exist  with  his  family  in 
a  one-room  tenement.  He  sees  the  children  of  the  indus- 
trial captain  enjoying  the  advantages  of  individual  instruc- 
tion, of  college  education,  of  travel,  of  books  and  pic- 
tures, of  beautiful  and  ennobling  surroundings,  while  his 
own  children,  while  still  mere  babies,  must  give  up  even 
the  poor  opportunities  they  have  had  of  education  in 
crowded  schoolroom,  in  large  classes,  under  overworked 
teachers,  where  they  are  tossed,  so  to  speak,  like  inani- 
mate materials  by  cartfuls  into  educational  hoppers,  to 
be  ground  out  supposedly  into  uniform  products — and  go 
out  at  the  end  of  the  fourth  grade  to  enter  upon  their 
sentence  of  hard  labor  for  life.  He  sees  all  the  injustice 
of  the  situation  and  his  heart  fills  with  unquenchable  hate. 

That  conditions  shall  continue  as  they  are  is  inconceiv- 
able. Either  the  wage  slave  must  resign  himself  to  a  state 
of  slavery  or  the  whole  slavery  system  must  go.  I  see  no 
signs  of  resignation  on  the  part  of  the  workers.  I  can 
see  no  signs  of  anything  but  the  overthrow  of  the  present 
system.  The  day  of  privilege  is  almost  over.  The  word 
"privilege"  means  literally  exemption  from  the  burdens 
of  the  law.  God  himself  enunciated  the  universal  law, 
"In  the  sweat  of  thy  brow  shalt  thou  eat  bread."  In  all 
ages  the  privileged  class  has  perverted  this  to  read,  "In 
the  sweat  of  other  men's  brows  shall  I  and  my  children 
eat  bread." 

In  the  past  the  privileged  class  has  generally  been  able 
to  secure  a  monopoly  of  intelligence,  and  therefore  easily 
maintained  their  privileges.     They  could  persuade  the 

340 


Democracy  and  Social  Progress 

more  ignorant  toiler  that  he  was  composed  of  a  darker 
clay,  only  fit  to  serve  his  betters.  They  pacified  his  dis- 
content by  promising  him  that  he  should,  if  obedient, 
receive  his  reward  by  an  abundance  of  privilege  in  an- 
other world,  or  they  sweetened  his  slavery  by  giving  back 
to  him,  on  the  Master's  birthday,  or  at  Christmas  time, 
a  portion  of  the  product  wrung  from  him,  as  a  gracious 
gift.  To-day,  however  this  privileged  class  no  longer 
monopolizes  intelligence.  On  the  contrary,  superior  intel- 
ligence is  rather  to  be  found  among  the  unprivileged  class. 
Scientists,  inventors,  artists,  and  writers  are  seldom  found 
in  the  privileged  class.  Therefore,  the  doom  of  privilege 
is  sealed.  Throughout  the  earth  to-day  is  heard  the  in- 
sistent demand  among  the  masses  for  more  abundant  life. 
Not  only  in  America  and  in  Europe,  but  in  Turkey,  in 
Persia,  and  in  China,  the  multitude  demands  the  abolition 
of  privilege.  The  clock  of  the  age  is  striking.  Privilege 
is  fighting  its  last  battle.  Democracy  is  conscious  and 
militant.  To  oppose  this  great  movement  is  as  futile 
as  to  attempt  to  drive  back  the  ocean  tides  with  a  broom. 
The  question  is  not  whether  the  new  era  of  economic  free- 
dom will  come ;  the  question  is  whether  it  will  come  peace- 
ably or  with  seas  of  blood. 

Historically,  the  overthrow  of  privilege  has  usually 
been  accompanied  by  great  violence.  I  hope  that  the  in- 
dustrial battles  in  Colorado,  in  Michigan,  and  in  Law- 
rence, Massachusetts,  do  not  presage  a  terrific  and  bloody 
conflict.  If  economic  democracy  does  come  without  ter- 
rific violence,  it  will  be  due,  in  my  opinion,  largely  to  the 
efforts  of  the  Church.  The  Church  is  in  a  position  to  in- 
fluence both  combatants  more  favorably  than  is  any  other 
organization.  It  can  say  to  the  laborer:  "You  need  not 
give  up  your  Christianity  in  your  zeal  for  democracy,  for 
fundamentally  they  are  the  same;  both  mean  abundant 

341 


Addresses  World's  Social  Progress  Congress 

life  for  all  men.  You  are  entitled  to  abundant  life  and 
you  are  not  required  to  wait  for  it  for  future  generations 
or  for  a  future  world;  but  it  is  to  your  interest,  as  well 
as  that  of  humanity,  that  you  secure  it  by  constructive 
means.  The  church  can  say  to  the  privileged  class.  You 
must  yield  privilege ;  you  and  your  children  must  hence- 
forth eat  only  bread  that  you  yourselves  produce.  In 
emancipating  the  exploited,  however,  you  will  be  really 
emancipating  yourselves." 

The  most  hopeful  sign  of  the  present  day  to  me  is  the 
whole-hearted  zeal  with  which  leading  clergymen  are 
seeking  to  obtain  social  reconstruction  without  bloodshed. 
It  is  a  fine  thing  that  in  such  assemblages  as  this,  con- 
vened to  secure  exchange  of  ideas  and  co-operation  for 
social  betterment,  that  the  leadership  is  being  taken  by 
active  ministers  of  all  religious  denominations.  The  task 
to  be  performed  is,  nevertheless,  almost  appalling  in  its 
magnitude.  The  workman  feels  crushed  to  the  earth ;  he 
sees  no  light  ahead  for  himself  or  for  his  children ;  he  is 
desperate.  Either  unversed  in  historical  studies,  or,  if 
so  trained,  denying  the  conclusion  that  education  and 
political  action  are  more  effective  in  righting  wrongs  than 
are  physical  violence  and  bloodshed,  he  tends  instinctively 
to  strike  out  blindly.  To  persuade  him  to  constructive 
effort  is  often  very  difficult. 

Even  more  difficult,  perhaps,  is  the  task  of  persuading 
the  beneficiaries  of  privilege  to  climb  down  from  the  backs 
of  others  and  walk.  Privilege  is  so  sweet,  or  seems  so 
sweet,  that  for  many  centuries  casuistry  has  been  exercised 
in  the  attempt  to  satisfy  the  unprivileged  without  depriv- 
ing the  privileged  of  their  advantages.  To-day  the  phrase 
most  perverted  in  this  word  game  is  that  of  "equality  of 
opportunity."  Honestly  put  into  practice,  equality  of  op- 
portunity would  be  a  great  step  toward  securing  abun- 

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Democracy  and  Social  Progress 

dance  of  life  for  all.  As  actually  used,  the  term  merely 
tends  to  confuse  discussion.  The  assumption  that  slavery 
and  brotherhood  might  exist  together  seems  to  us  ab- 
surd, yet  by  an  ingenius  species  of  word  juggling  it  was 
so  claimed  for  centuries.  Jesus  was  logical  and  honest. 
When  he  declared  that  abundant  life  was  for  all  and  that 
all  were  brothers,  he  meant  it.  His  immediate  followers 
for  a  time  practiced  this  belief.  Wealth  was  held  in  com- 
mon ;  there  was  no  privilege ;  a  state  of  actual  brother- 
hood existed.  But  privilege  soon  crept  in  and  word  jug- 
gling began.  Even  the  great  apostle  to  the  Gentiles,  St. 
Paul,  reared  as  he  had  been,  a  member  of  the  privileged 
class,  could  not  rid  himself  of  the  belief  in  the  necessity 
of  privilege,  and  attempted  to  reconcile  slavery  with 
brotherhood.  On  the  one  hand,  he  enjoined  upon  slaves 
obedience  to  their  "masters  in  the  Lord,"  and  on  the  other 
hand  enjoined  upon  the  masters  kindness  to  their  slaves 
as  to  "brothers  in  the  Lord." 

To-day,  everybody  professes  allegiance  to  the  principle 
of  equality  of  opportunity;  but  few  believe  in  an  actual 
equality  of  opportunity.  A  race,  however,  is  not  an  equal 
race  if,  at  the  pistol  shot,  one  athlete  starts  a  half  mile 
in  advance  of  his  rival  at  the  base  line.  The  poor  boy  is 
not  given  an  equality  of  opportunity  if  his  richer  rival  is 
favored  with  more  nourishing  food,  better  opportunities 
of  travel,  more  artistic  and  intellectual  surroundings,  not 
to  speak  of  a  greater  chance  of  securing  an  occupational 
position  offering  future  advantages  of  power  and  re- 
wards. Real  equality  of  opportunity,  if  put  in  practice, 
will  accomplish  wonders,  but  it  will  cost  a  big  price.  It 
cannot  be  secured  by  pleasant  words  nor  by  merely  re- 
formatory measures.  It  will  require  such  radical  changes 
in  the  whole  political  and  economic  framework  of  society 
as  the  following:  An  inheritance  tax  that  will  place  the 

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Addresses  World's  Social  Progress  Congress 

rich  man's  son  on  an  equality  with  the  poor  man's  son; 
a  land  tax  that  will  restore  the  wealth  of  nature  to  all  the 
people  for  the  benefit  of  all,  and  the  public  ownership 
and  operation  of  the  great  industries  that  supply  the 
necessities  of  life  to  the  people. 

These  are  radical  steps,  it  is  true,  indeed  revolutionary ; 
but  nothing  less  will  give  us  real  equality  of  opportunity. 
George  M.  Reynolds,  in  his  presidential  address  before 
the  American  Bankers'  Association,  stated  that  eleven 
men,  of  whom  he  admitted  himself  to  be  one,  practically 
controlled  the  industries  of  the  United  States,  and  de- 
clared that  with  such  industrial  despotism  there  could  be 
no  liberty  for  the  American  people. 

Private  economic  despotism  is  not  only  converting  a 
large  proportion  of  the  citizens  of  the  land  into  wage 
slaves ;  it  is  woefully  inefficient.  George  W.  Perkins,  an- 
other member  of  the  small  oligarchy  which  controls  the 
nation's  industry,  in  his  testimony  before  the  United 
States  Commission  on  Industrial  Relations,  said,  "Any 
one  approaching  this  country  in  an  airship  and  looking 
down  on  it  and  seeing  our  great,  fertile  fields  and  rich 
mines  and  the  comparatively  small  population,  then  seeing 
the  number  of  unemployed — the  number  of  people  who 
are  not  employed  as  they  should  be — would  think  this 
was  a  lunatic  asylum!"  Another  large  financier,  A.  L. 
Stephens,  of  Detroit,  says,  "One  oi  the  great  troubles  of 
our  country  is,  and  has  been,  the  putting  at  the  helm  the 
sons  of  rich  people  who  never  know  how  a  dollar  is 
earned,  or  know  the  true  meaning  of  the  word  'panic'; 
their  promotions  were  gained  by  the  power  of  their 
fathers  or  some  relative's  money  and  position."  Experts 
before  the  Interstate  Commission  have  recently  testified 
that  the  boards  of  directors  of  some  of  the  largest  rail- 
roads in  the  country  are  filled  with  men,  who,  when  not 

344 


Democracy  and  Social  Progress 

mere  dummies,  are  still  wholly  ignorant  of  the  business 
that  they  are  presumed  to  direct. 

Despotism,  political  or  economic,  is  everywhere  ineffi- 
cient. Napoleon  sent,  one  after  another,  Austrian  armies 
of  overwhelming  numerical  superiority,  reeling  in  head- 
long route ;  and  the  reason  for  this  was  very  simple.  The 
officerships  of  the  Austrian  armies  were  held  by  dukes 
and  counts ;  the  positions  were  filled  by  privilege.  In  Na- 
poleon's army  it  was  said  that  every  private  carried  a 
marshal's  baton  in  his  knapsack.  His  generals  came  from 
the  humblest  walks  of  life.  Some  had  earlier  served  as 
bakers  and  tailors  and  shoemakers.  Ability  and  merit 
secured  the  officerships.  Until  a  few  years  ago  officer- 
ships  in  the  British  army  and  rectorships  in  the  English 
church  were  obtained  openly  by  purchase.  As  they  have 
become  socialized,  so  officerships  in  the  industrial  army, 
if  only  for  the  sake  of  efficiency,  must  be  socialized. 

Modern  life  is  regimented  and  organized  into  vast 
armies.  Therefore  even  more  than  formerly  are  the  labors 
of  detached  individuals  to  better  the  world,  ineflFective. 
Cardinal  Satolli,  some  years  ago,  criticized  American 
churches  for  participating  in  the  movement  to  secure  gov- 
ernmental prohibition  of  the  liquor  traffic.  "Let  the 
churches  regenerate  the  individual,"  said  he,  and  "the 
saloons  will  close  up  for  lack  of  patrons."  The  churches 
however,  now  realize  that  the  "sweep  before  one's  own 
door"  policy,  if  it  ever  works,  will  not  work  in  our  mod- 
em, highly-organized  life.  We  must  Christianize  the 
whole  framework  of  our  social  structure  and  it  is  a  great 
step  forward  to  learn  that  society  cannot  be  in  practice 
regenerated  by  preaching  to  the  drunkard,  temperance; 
to  the  employer,  kindness;  to  the  rich  man,  charity,  and 
so  on.  But  there  is  a  still  more  important  step  ahead  of 
this.     Negative  prohibition  of  alcohol  and  vice  is  good; 

345 


Addresses  World's  Social  Progress  Congress 

positive,  affirmative  provision  for  a  social  structure  that 
affords  abundant  life  for  all,  is  better.  Jesus  wasted  little 
time  in  condemning  vice.  Instead,  he  furiously  de- 
nounced privilege.  He  knew  that  conditions,  not  indi- 
viduals, were  to  blame.  Not  one  harsh  word  did  he  utter 
to  thieves  or  prostitutes.  His  scathing  invective  was  lim- 
ited to  the  privileged  classes,  to  the  orthodox  Pharisees, 
the  heretical  Sadducees,  and  the  theological  scribes,  who, 
differing  in  other  particulars,  were  identical  in  this :  They 
lived  the  life  of  the  privileged,  eating  the  bread  produced 
by  the  sweat  of  others'  brows. 

Robert  Owens  took  charge  of  a  cotton  mill  which  was 
in  financial  difficulties  and  operated  by  ignorant,  vicious, 
and  drunken  employees.  He  never  discharged  a  single 
employee  for  any  cause  whatsoever.  He  surrounded  them 
with  better  conditions,  with  more  abundant  life.  As  a  re- 
sult, ignorance  and  vice  and  drunkenness  disappeared. 
The  factory  became  known  throughout  the  world  as  an 
oasis  of  sunshine  and  right  living,  and  the  enterprise  be- 
came a  great  financial  success.  Mr.  Ford,  the  automobile 
manufacturer,  told  the  Commission  on  Industrial  Rela- 
tions, that  he  could  take  every  convict  out  of  Sing  Sing 
prison  and  make  a  man  of  him. 

Men  are  not  bad ;  conditions  are  bad,  and  we  must 
change  the  conditions.  Under  our  present  industrial  sys- 
tem, thousands  of  rich  idlers  and  millions  of  poor  idlers 
are  not  employed  at  all.  Other  millions  are  not  produc- 
ing things  that  make  for  abundant  life  for  the  many,  but 
cater  to  the  luxuries  and  frivolities  of  the  few.  Still 
others  produce  nothing  at  all,  but  as  solicitors,  agents, 
brokers,  they  sell  things  more  or  less  worthless.  The 
tragedy  of  our  present  age  is  the  small  number  of  work- 
ers actually  engaged  in  the  labor  of  producing  useful 
things.     Yet  upon  the  backs  of  these  few  useful  toilers 

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Democracy  and  Social  Progress 

is  laid  the  support  of  all  the  rest.  Modern  invention  has 
multiplied  an  hundredfold  the  productive  capacity  of  the 
individual  worker.  If  everybody  worked  and  everybody 
labored  to  produce  useful  things,  abundant  life  for  all 
would  be  easily  possible. 

The  average  man  would  then  live  even  more  abundantly 
than  does  the  rich  man  to-day.  For  a  superfluity  im- 
poverishes life  almost  as  much  as  does  actual  want.  Said 
Jesus,  "A  man's  life  consisteth  not  in  the  abundance  of 
the  things  which  he  possesseth."  In  the  achievement  of 
wealth  the  ordinary  American  is  so  oppressed  by  care 
and  anxiety  that  he  has  no  time  for  "living."  If  he  "suc- 
ceeds," that  is,  grasps  more  money  than  he  knows  what 
to  do  with,  he  does  not  know  how  to  live,  he  cannot  buy 
life — he  can  only  buy  things.  Wealth  takes  away  the 
necessity  of  labor  for  his  children,  removes  the  incentive 
to  service,  the  greatest  enricher  of  life.  His  children, 
next  to  the  children  of  the  poor,  have  the  least  oppor- 
tunity; they  are  surrounded  by  temptation  to  self-indul- 
gence, to  vice,  and  to  degeneracy.  Equality  of  oppor- 
tunity and  abundance  of  life  for  all  would  also  bring 
about  the  removal  of  physical  and  moral  plague  spots 
which  threaten  the  homes  of  the  rich  as  well  as  those  of 
the  poor. 

Under  socialized  industry,  service  of  every  character 
becomes  truly  dignified.  Peter  refused  to  permit  his 
Lord  to  wash  his  feet;  for  under  slavery,  service  is 
menial.  Under  freedom,  the  w^orkman  may  still  be  forced 
to  derive  his  livelihood  from  a  monotonous  and  soul-kill- 
ing drudgery  at  the  factory  machine,  but  he  realizes  that 
it  is  for  the  service  of  the  nation  and  not  the  private 
profit  of  an  employer;  and  instead  of  his  penal  hours,  ex- 
tending from  ten  to  twelve  hours  daily,  he  will  work 
under  a  system  by  which  all  labor  and  for  useful  prod- 
s' 


Addresses  World's  Social  Progress  Congress 

ucts,  only,  and  each  man's  necessary  task  will  amount  to 
only  three  or  four  hours.  After  work  hours,  with  most 
of  his  time  and  strength  remaining,  he  can  really  live. 
He  can  spend  it  in  scientific  research  or  artistic  creation 
or  gardening  or  social  intercourse  or  whatever  he  chooses. 
Life,  too,  will  be  easier  for  him  when  his  wife  and  daugh- 
ters are  no  longer  distressed  by  the  extravagant  expendi- 
tures of  their  wealthy  friends. 

Our  present  system  is  killing  genius  in  millions  of 
souls.  The  world  is  impoverished  continuously  by  the 
loss  of  intellectual  and  artistic  ideas  that  are  never  per- 
mitted to  come  to  flower.  For  a  single  generation  in 
Periclean  Athens,  though  hampered  by  the  institutional 
slavery  and  surrounded  by  national  enemies,  a  portion  of 
this  community  was  permitted  to  develop  its  culture  upon 
a  basis  of  democracy  and  the  practice  of  abundant  life, 
and  to-day  the  world  stands  spellbound  by  the  glory  of 
its  accomplishments. 

Under  a  system  of  economic  democracy,  America,  free 
from  the  menace  of  foreign  enemies  and  favored  by  the 
enormous  advance  in  mechanical  invention  and  knowledge 
of  sanitation  and  hygiene,  can,  in  a  single  generation, 
without  any  doubt  whatever,  exhibit  a  culture  far  supe- 
rior to  that  of  Athens. 

We  stand  to-day  confronting  tremendous  possibilities 
for  good  or  for  evil,  which  may  well  cause  us  to  tremble 
for  the  results.  We  have,  on  the  one  hand,  nation- 
wide discontent  that  will  not  accept  pleasant  words  in  lieu 
of  abundant  life.  If  we  hesitate,  if  we  attempt  to  juggle 
words,  to  say,  "Peace,  peace,  when  there  is  no  peace,"  if 
we  talk  of  equality  of  opportunity  and  then  block  any  at- 
tempt made  to  remove  privilege,  if  we  try  to  substitute 
charity  for  justice — if  we  do  these  things,  we  are  likely 
to  have  a  revolution  as  much  more  violent  and  bloody 

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Democracy  and  Social  Progress 

than  the  French  revolution  as  are  the  unprivileged  to- 
day more  intelligent  and  conscious  of  their  wrong  than 
were  the  French  peasants  of  1789. 

On  the  other  hand,  if  we  insist  upon  justice  and  real 
equality  of  opportunity  for  every  child  in  the  land,  then 
there  will  come  a  state  of  happiness  and  intellectual  and 
moral  development  such  as  the  world  has  never  dreamed 
of. 

If  the  Church  follows  the  example  of  Jesus,  it  must 
support  democracy,  poHtical  and  economic.  Mark  Hanna 
called  upon  the  Church  to  aid  in  the  protection  of  prop- 
erty. But  as  has  been  pointed  out  by  a  Jewish  professor 
in  the  University  of  Berlin,  the  utilization  of  the  Church 
of  Jesus  as  a  bulwark  to  property  is  the  greatest  travesty 
in  history.  The  Church  of  Jesus,  the  man  who  had  not 
where  to  lay  his  head,  who  bitterly  cursed  the  propertied 
classes  as  devourers  of  the  homes  of  widows  and  orphans, 
who  lashed  the  bankers  with  a  whip  of  cord,  turning  over 
their  tables  and  scattering  their  moneys  in  the  street,  who 
was  put  to  death  for  arousing  the  discontent  of  the  work- 
ers against  the  privileged — that  this  Church  should  serve 
as  a  prop  to  privilege  is  a  proposition  too  absurd  for  this 
enlightened  age. 

With  such  Christian  leaders  as  Walter  Rauschenbusch, 
Josiah  Strong,  and  Dr.  Reginald  Campbell,  of  London, 
and  with  such  ringing  resolutions  for  social  justice  as 
have  been  recently  passed  in  conventions  of  the  Episco- 
pal, Presbyterian,  Congregational,  Methodist,  and  other 
churches,  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  the  influence  of  the 
Christian  churches,  with  thousands  of  ministers  and  mil- 
lions of  adherents,  will  henceforth  be  exerted  to  gain 
abundant  life  for  all  of  the  people  of  this  land. 

All  the  forces  for  social  betterment  must  unite  in  this 
common  movement  to  Christianize  our  national  and  inter- 

349 


Addresses  World's  Social  Progress  Congress 

national,  political,  and  social  structures,  by  substituting 
the  principles  of  humanity  for  that  of  patriotism,  co- 
operation for  competition,  abundant  life  for  negative  re- 
striction— in  short,  to  Christianize  war  and  slavery  by 
wholly  abolishing  them. 


3SD 


Chapter  XXX. 

THE  REVIVAL  OF  OUR  NATIONAL  RELIGION 
AND  SOCIAL  PROGRESS. 

BY  J.  S.  m'gAW. 

I  feel  that  the  words  of  your  chairman  are  true ;  that 
the  fitting  cHmax  for  this  congress  is  the  reahzation  of 
the  fundamental  relationship  which  reHgion  bears  to  all 
social  progress.  In  the  last  analysis,  social  progress  will 
be  commensurate  with  the  growth  of  religion  among  the 
people.  It  is  not  the  nation  that  makes  the  religion ;  it  is 
the  religion  that  makes  the  nation.  The  Hindoo  and  the 
Chinaman  have  just  as  much  brains  as  the  German  or 
American.  It  isn't  the  lack  of  brain  capacity;  it  is  the 
difference  in  the  philosophy  of  a  people  that  counts.  The 
Hindoo  thinks  that  man  has  sprung  from  nothing,  and 
his  highest  ideal  is  going  back  to  nothing;  consequently 
there  is  no  progress,  simply  stagnation.  The  other 
teaches  that  he  sprang  from  God,  a  person,  and  is  going 
back  to  God,  a  person,  and  his  highest  ideal  is  to  be  like 
God ;  consequently  there  is  progress.  So  you  have  in  the 
philosophy  of  the  Occident  and  the  Orient  the  secret  of 
conditions,  one  stagnates  and  the  other  grows  and  pro- 
gresses through  the  centuries.  So  it  isn't  the  nation  that 
makes  the  religion;  it  is  the  reHgion  that  makes  the  na- 
tion. Confucianism  produced  China,  and  that  meant 
mental  and  moral  stagnation  for  centuries  until  Christi- 
anity struck  it,  and  then  China  changed  her  form  of  gov- 
ernment. It  is  said  that  the  queen  of  Madagascar  once 
wrote  to  Queen  Victoria,  asking  her  the  secret  of  English 

351 


Addresses  World's  Social  Progress  Congress 

power,  and  Queen  Victoria  sent  back  a  magnificent  copy 
of  the  Word  of  God.  That  is  the  secret.  We  have  no 
hesitancy  in  affirming  that  the  secret  of  this  great  western 
empire  is  the  Word  of  God.  The  source  of  power  is  the 
Christianity  which  it  teaches,  and  while  we  have  never 
had,  and  pray  God  may  never  have,  an  established  church 
on  American  soil,  we  have  always  had  a  national  religion. 
There  is  a  vast  difference  between  the  divorcement  of 
church  and  state  and  the  divorcement  from  the  state 
of  the  religion  which  makes  it.  So  while  we  have  never 
had  a  state  church,  we  have  always  had  a  national  reli- 
gion, and  that  is  Christianity.  It  was  written  into  the 
Mayflower  compact  before  that  ship  touched  the  shore; 
you  will  find  it  in  all  the  extant  colonial  documents,  like 
a  golden  thread  running  all  the  way  through ;  it  is  in 
the  Declaration  of  Independence;  it  is  in  the  inaugural 
and  farewell  addresses  of  Washington,  and  in  the  resolu- 
tions of  Congress  over  and  over,  and  in  the  messages  and 
papers  of  the  Presidents.  It  is  embodied  in  the  decisions 
of  the  Supreme  Court  and  of  the  Federal  and  State 
courts;  it  is  in  the  constitution  of  every  State  in  the 
Union,  including  that  of  the  great  State  of  California; 
it  is  in  the  oaths  administered  in  the  courts  of  justice; 
"So  help  me  God."  The  citizen  is  not  only  asked  to  ac- 
knowledge the  existence  of  God  but  to  stand  in  the  court, 
and  before  the  judge,  offer  a  prayer  to  God.  You  will 
find  the  Bible  in  the  public  schools  of  thirty  States,  and 
in  the  Thanksgiving  proclamation  issued  by  the  Presi- 
dent and  governors.  You  will  find  it  embodied  in  the 
statute  laws  of  all  the  States  of  the  Union;  it  is  stamped 
upon  our  coins,  "In  God  We  Trust."  Turn  where  you 
will,  you  come  face  to  face  with  the  fact  that  upon  Amer- 
ican soil  there  is  a  national  religion,  and  that  national 
religion  is  Christian. 

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Revival  of  Our  National  Religion  and  Social  Progress 

And,  friends,  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States 
in  1892  had  a  case  before  it  in  which  they  were  compelled 
to  decide  what  kind  of  a  nation  this  is,  and  so  they  had 
passed  before  them  in  careful  review  all  this  evidence 
which  I  have  presented  and  far  more  beside  from  our 
legal  documents,  and  from  our  general,  national  life ;  and 
at  the  conclusion  of  that  magnificent  review  they  gave 
the  unequivocal  decision  that  this  is  a  Christian  nation. 
The  genius  of  our  American  RepubHc  is  Christian  and 
the  common  law  '.>f  the  land  is  based  upon  Christianity, 
and  the  greatest  single  battle  to  be  fought  on  American 
soil  at  this  moment  is  for  the  conservation  of  our  national 
Christianity.  All  the  reforms  that  we  seek  in  civic  life 
depend  upon  that,  for  the  religion  of  a  people  constitutes 
the  environment  of  a  people,  and  so  we  must  look  to 
our  national  religion  as  the  fundamental  thing  if  we  are 
to  get  anything  like  progress  in  social  conditions. 

But  some  one  sits  back  and  says,  'Is  our  national  reli- 
gion in  danger?  Doesn't  it  exist  like  the  atmosphere 
that  we  breathe?"  But  the  atmosphere  may  become  poi- 
soned and  lose  its  life-giving  property;  and  there  is 
danger  that  the  atmosphere  of  our  national  life,  derived 
from  the  mighty  impulse  of  the  colonial  days,  the  great 
inspiration  in  the  building  of  our  American  institutions — 
that  that  national  religion  may  become  contaminated  and 
in  a  large  measure  lose  the  power  it  originally  possessed. 

We  must  remember  that  while  we  have  had  for  one 
hundred  and  fifty  years  the  dominancy  of  our  national  re- 
ligion ;  while  we  had  it  all  during  colonial  times,  when  the 
young  giant  grew  up  he  wholly  ignored  his  forefathers' 
creed,  he  forgot  his  early  instruction,  and  he  made  a 
document  which  contains  no  reference  whatever  to  God 
or  Jesus  Christ  or  to  the  law  of  God,  which  is  the  only 
true  basis  of  civil  law.     We  have  a  constitution  which 

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Addresses  World's  Social  Progress  Congress 

does  not  in  any  wise  recognize  our  national  Christianity. 
That  is  a  great  defect.  There  is  a  struggle  between 
a  democracy  which  proposes  to  de-Christianize  America, 
and  a  democracy  that  proposes  to  Christianize  America; 
on  one  side  the  religious  democracy  and  on  the  other  side 
the  secular  democracy,  determined  not  to  rest,  day  or 
night,  until  the  la§t  vestige  of  Christianity  is  banished 
from  our  national  institutions. 

First  of  all,  is  the  American  Secular  Union,  repre- 
senting ten  million  agnostics,  atheists,  infidels,  banded  to- 
gether and  sending  out  from  their  headquarters  in  Chi- 
cago their  literature  denouncing  the  principle,  which  they 
hold  up  to  scorn  that  the  Church  of  Jesus  Christ,  which 
they  hold  in  contempt,  and  our  American  Sabbath,  and 
all  these  Christian  features  have  made  us  what  we 
are.  And  in  the  Truth  Seeker,  their  weekly  organ,  they 
demand  that  we  banish  the  Bible  from  our  schools,  do 
away  with  all  chaplains  in  the  army  and  navy,  and  all 
days  of  prayer  in  our  Republic,  and  that  we  may  be 
guided  by  natural  morality  and  not  Christian  morality. 
I  don't  know  what  natural  morality  is ;  I  have  never  been 
in  any  country  where  they  had  a  first-class  example  of  it. 
The  nearest  approach  to  it,  I  imagine,  would  be  in  the 
middle  of  the  Philippine  Islands  among  the  bolo  throw- 
ers and  head  hunters,  or  among  the  Hottentots  and  Zulus ; 
and  I  want  to  tell  our  friends  that  their  lives  wouldn't  be 
worth  seven  cents  if  they  were  to  live  in  the  kind  of  a 
land  that  they  want  to  make  America.  There  is  no  in- 
surance company  that  would  accept  them  as  a  risk,  if 
they  insisted  on  living  in  that  kind  of  a  country. 

But  these  people  have  lobbyists  in  the  legislature  and 
send  out  their  literature.  And  back  of  them  is  the  Amer- 
ican Conference  of  American  Rabbis,  representing  the 
Jews,  and  they  are  trying  to  de-Christianize  America  and 

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Revival  of  Our  National  Religion  and  Social  Progress 

make  it  Jewish,  if  possible.  Their  idea  is  to  banish  the 
Bible  from  the  public  schools,  do  away  with  the  Amer- 
ican Sabbath  and  all  reference  to  Christianity  in  any 
form  in  legal  documents,  legislative  enactments,  or  in  our 
national  life,  manners,  and  customs.  They  have  just 
had  their  twenty-fifth  annual  convention. 

Back  of  them  again  are  the  reformed  Jews,  and  they 
give  opportunities  to  the  rabbis  to  lecture,  and  see  that 
the  lecture  is  published  in  the  papers.  They  represent 
between  one  and  two  million  Jews ;  they  are  putting  thou- 
sands of  dollars  into  the  propaganda. 

Back  of  them  stands  the  great,  organized  liquor  traffic, 
which  realizes  that  Christianity  is  inconsistent  with  the 
saloon,  and  so  the  whole  hue  and  cry  of  the  liquor  traffic 
is  ''Away  with  the  Church ;  what  has  Christianity  got  to 
do  with  politics  or  national  life?"  They  maintain  that 
God  has  nothing  to  do  with  government.  They  are  using 
thousands  of  dollars  in  their  work,  for  it  is  the  only  hope 
of  the  continuance  of  the  saloon. 

Then  there  is  the  Roman  Catholic  Hierarchy.  The 
rank  and  file  of  the  Catholics  would  be  willing  to  leave 
the  Bible  in  the  pubhc  schools ;  but  the  hierarchy,  never. 
It  is  opposed  to  that,  and  to  the  free  education  of  the 
people.  They  want  to  banish  the  Bible  from  every 
public  school  in  America  and  they  are  spending  thou- 
sands of  dollars  to  let  us  know  that  they  are  opposed  to 
the  public  school. 

Then  we  have  always  back  of  them  a  number  of  other 
sects,  who,  in  order  to  foist  their  tenets  on  the  govern- 
ment, are  willing  to  accept  the  aid  of  these  other  organ- 
izations. All  of  these  constitute  the  secularizing  forces 
in  America,  and  they  are  to-day  one  of  the  gravest  dan- 
gers we  have  under  the  Stars  and  Stripes.  I  am  not  so 
much  worried  over  the  prospect  of  an  invading  army  or 

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Addresses  World^s  Social  Progress  Congress 

navy  as  I  am  over  the  existence  of  forces  that  will  re- 
move the  foundations  on  which  our  social  existence  is 
built.  Their  whole  plea  is  that  it  is  ''unconstitutional," 
and  they  hark  back  always  to  our  law.  We  can  always 
fall  back  on  the  common  law  of  the  land,  because  that  is 
Christian;  but  how  much  better  if  we  could  have  in  our 
fundamental  law  a  clear-cut  statement  of  our  national 
religion ;  and  it  ought  to  be  there. 

Suppose  a  young  man  starting  out  in  life,  upon  reach- 
ing his  majority  should  say,  "I  don't  propose  for  a  single 
instant  to  acknowledge  my  responsibility  to  Almighty 
God  and  his  reign  in  my  life;  I  don't  propose  to  accept 
the  law  of  God."  What  could  you  expect?  Would  you 
be  surprised  if  that  young  man  drifted  into  the  saloon 
business?  That  is  what  Uncle  Sam  has  done;  he  is  the 
rhiei  partner  in  business  with  two  hundred  thousand 
legalized  saloons  under  government  protection.  You 
wouldn't  be  surprised  if  that  young  man  had  very  loose 
ideas  with  regard  to  divorce  and  polygamy,  would  you? 
To-day  we  have  fifty-one  different  divorce  codes,  all  busy ; 
we  have  fifty-five  different  reasons  for  divorce;  we  have 
delivered  one  hundred  and  seventy-five  thousand  divorces. 
It  has  been  estimated  that  every  second  minute  a  divorce 
is  applied  for,  and  every  third  minute  one  is  granted. 
One  in  every  three  marriages  ends  in  divorce  in  Kansas, 
and  in  the  United  States,  one  in  every  seven.  Next  to 
Japan,  we  lead  the  world  in  the  number  of  divorces  and 
murders. 

You  wouldn't  be  a  bit  surprised  if  that  young  man  had 
a  very  loose  idea  in  regard  to  polygamy.  The  Mormons 
are  stretching  their  tentacles  over  eleven  States,  with  a 
direct  wire  to  Washington ;  for  three  administrations  they 
have  dictated  the  policy  of  our  national  life.  They  send 
out  missionaries  in  every  part  of  the  United  States  bear- 

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Revival  of  Our  National  Religion  and  Social  Progress 

''ng  a  pagan  message  blaspheming  the  name  of  God ;  and 
notwithstanding  alj  the  protest,  Reed  Smoot  still  sits  in 
the  United  States  vSenate. 

You  wouldn't  be  surprised  if  that  young  man  had  a 
very  loose  idea  with  regard  to  the  Sabbath,  and  you 
found  him  a  Sabbath  desecrator.  Every  Sunday  the  mail 
trains  are  speeding  across  the  continent,  while  an  army 
of  men  must  work  all  day  to  gain  their  bread.  It  is  only 
lately  that  they  stopped  Sunday  work  on  the  canal.  It 
is  a  shame  that  this  great  world's  fair  should  be  open  on 
the  Lord's  day.  I  want  to  tell  you  that  if  you  have  no 
Sabbath  you  will  soon  have  no  good  religion,  and  if  you 
have  no  religion,  you  will  have  no  God,  and  then  no  con- 
science, and  then  no  respect  for  the  rights  of  your  fellow- 
men,  and  then  lawlessness  and  anarchy  will  come,  and 
those  two  things,  lawlessness  and  anarchy,  are  increasing 
in  direct  proportion  as  you  lose  the  Bible  from  your  pub- 
lic schools,  and  your  American  Sabbath. 

You  would  not  be  surprised  if  that  young  man  had 
loose  ideas  with  regard  to  the  Bible  in  its  relation  to  the 
state,  the  citizen,  and  national  life,  and  there  are  these 
groups  that  I  have  told  you  of  that  are  trying  to  banish 
the  Bible  from  the  school  and  the  national  life. 

I  might  mention  a  great  many  more  things  in  our  na- 
tional Hfe  that  mark  the  drift;  I  have  only  given  you  a 
few  to  indicate  the  mile  posts  and  give  you  a  realization 
of  the  necessity  of  going  back  to  the  fundamental  that 
made  possible  this  American  nation,  and  that  is  our  na- 
tional religion.  What  we  need  to-day  is  a  proclamation 
of  the  principles  of  God  as  they  are  appHed  in  national 
life  in  such  a  way  that  they  will  go  deep  into  the  heart 
of  every  American  citizen,  and  then  we  will  have  a  cit- 
izenship that  will  overthrow  all  the  great  systems  of  evil, 
and  write  into  our  fundamental  law  the  acknowledgment 

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Addresses  World's  Social  Progress  Congress 

of  God  who  sits  upon  the  throne;  and  until  we  do  that 
we  can  never  say  that  America  has  been  brought  to 
Christ.  You  would  be  surprised  in  going  through  the 
Bible,  how  large  a  proportion  of  it  is  given  over  entirely 
to  national  welfare;  fully  a  third  of  the  Bible  is  God's 
specific  message  to  the  nations. 

I  want  to  emphasize  the  absolute  necessity  of  this  dec- 
laration of  our  national  religion;  every  day  America  re- 
fuses to  acknowledge  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ  as  her  Lord 
and  Master  is  a  disgrace.  God  has  determined  the  ap- 
pointed seasons  and  has  set  the  bounds  and  habitations  of 
the  peoples  of  the  earth;  he  has  meted  out  to  us  every 
inch  of  soil  under  the  Stars  and  Stripes.  The  Lord  Jesus 
Christ  died  for  the  redemption  of  x\merica;  if  you  don't 
get  anything  else,  get  this  truth ;  Jesus  Christ  swung  from 
the  cross  to  save  America  and  American  social  life.  "God 
so  loved  the  world  that  he  gave  his  only  begotten  Son" ; 
that  is  the  great  news  for  the  individual ;  speed  it  around 
the  world  until  the  last  sin-sick  soul  on  the  face  of  the 
earth  has  heard  it.  But  you  don't  hear  the  following  verse 
so  often ;  "God  sent  not  his  Son  into  the  world  to  condemn 
the  world,  but  that  the  world  through  him  might  be 
saved."  And  the  Greek  word  translated  "world"  is  "cos- 
mos" ;  in  its  root  meaning  it  is  an  orderly  arrangement. 
When  it  is  applied  to  the  physical  universe  you  mean  the 
orderly  arrangement  of  the  stars  and  planets.  Applied  to 
humanity,  it  is  the  orderly  arrangement  of  mankind,  or- 
ganized society  in  all  of  its  manifestations,  and  there  is 
no  possibility  of  evading  that  meaning  of  cosmos  when 
you  are  dealing  with  humanity.  God  did  not  send  his 
Son  to  redeem  organized  society,  but  that  organized  so- 
ciety through  him  might  be  saved.  There  you  have 
the  great  fundamental  hope  for  the  transformation  of 
human  society;  the  only  hope  is  the  Lord,  Christ,  the 

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Revival  of  Our  National  Religion  and  Social  Progress 

Savior  of  the  family,  of  the  state,  of  society  in  all  of  its 
departments.  This  is  the  end  for  which  he  laid  his  hands 
upon  the  cross,  the  end  for  which  he  descended  into  the 
grave. 

He  tells  us  to  go  and  preach  to  all  the  nations,  teach- 
ing them  to  observe  all  of  these  laws.  I  look  for- 
ward across  the  ages  to  the  time  when  nation  after  na- 
tion shall  own  him  as  their  Lord,  and  the  Church  of  Jesus 
Christ  as  their  faith.  But  the  safety  of  the  nation  de- 
mands that  we  have  this  acknowledgment  of  Christ  in 
our  fundamental  law.  God  is  very  specific  when  he 
speaks  of  the  nations :  "All  the  nations  that  forget  me 
shall  be  cast  into  Sheol."  But  the  nation  that  accepts 
him  shall  live  and  prosper. 

In  Congress  there  has  been  a  bill  to  recognize  God  in 
the  Constitution ;  the  committee  did  not  report  it  out ; 
Congress  was  not  ready ;  but  the  time  must  come  to  every 
man  and  nation  when  it  must  decide  between  good  and 
evil. 

And  we  must  have  a  revival  of  our  national  religion 
because  the  good  of  the  world  demands  it.  We  are  living 
in  a  great  age,  and  bear  great  responsibilities.  The  Chris- 
tianizing of  the  United  States  Government  is  our  only 
hope;  it  is  our  only  hope  of  Christianizing  China,  and 
of  demonstrating  the  gospel  of  Jesus  Christ  to  the  na- 
tions that  sit  in  darkness. 

Somebody  asks  what  influence  we  have  abroad?  Can 
we  ask  that  question  in  this  day  when  we  look  across 
the  sea  and  behold  the  carnage?  Do  we  not  expect  to 
have  America  step  forth  with  the  dove  of  peace  on  her 
hand?  Are  we  not  to-day  in  the  limelight  of  the  world's 
vision?  Some  one  has  said,  "As  goes  America,  so  goes 
the  world."  But  if  God  chooses  he  can  forget  that  Amer- 
ica ever  existed.    We  hold  the  advantage  now ;  our  oppor- 

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Addresses  World's  Social  Progress  Congress 

tunity  is  now,  and  we  must  acknowledge  our  national 
religion  that  we  may  bring  peace  to  those  nations  now 
at  war. 

General  Grant,  when  he  was  campaigning,  refused  to 
allow  his  picture  to  be  painted  on  the  flag,  because  he  said 
no  man  was  good  enough  to  have  his  portrait  placed  upon 
the  flag ;  and  he  was  right ;  but  is  not  the  Man  of  Galilee 
good  enough  to  have  his  portrait  painted  on  the  American 
flag?  On  Sunday  morning,  on  board  our  warships,  there 
is  a  white  flag  with  a  blue  cross  run  up  to  the  masthead, 
above  even  the  Stars  and  Stripes,  which  signifies  that  the 
men  on  the  ship  are  engaged  in  worship.  If  that  flag  can 
swing  from  the  yard  arm  of  our  navy,  can  it  not  also  in 
our  national  government?  Let  us  have  a  revival  of  our 
national  religion,  and  choose  out  from  among  us  men 
who  fear  God.  Send  them  up  to  the  State  legislatures 
and  to  our  National  Congress,  and  they  will  acknowledge 
God  in  our  Constitution. 


360 


Chapter  XXXL 
THE  PRINCIPLES  OF  SOCIAL  PROGRESS. 

BY  CHARLES  S.  GARDNER. 

It  is  a  bold  undertaking  to  attempt  to  discuss  this  sub- 
ject within  the  brief  compass  of  an  address.  It  would 
require  condensation  to  bring  an  adequate  discussion  of 
it  within  the  limits  of  a  volume. 

As  one  studies  this  important  subject  the  more  an  ade- 
quate answer  to  it  seems  to  require  an  analysis  of  the 
fundamental  principles  of  the  social  life.  At  the  thresh- 
old three  conceptions  of  society  confront  us,  our  accept- 
ance or  rejection  of  which  will  profoundly  influence  the 
answer  which  we  shall  reach. 

According  to  one,  society  is  a  great  being  with  a  con- 
sciousness, a  purpose,  a  will,  a  personaHty  of  its  own, 
distinct  from  the  minds,  purposes,  wills,  personalities  of 
the  individuals  who  are  its  elementary  constituents.  It 
regards  society  as  an  organism  after  the  analogy  of  a 
biological  organism.  Mr.  John  A.  Hobson,  a  firm  ad- 
herent of  this  theory,  thus  states  it:  "Society  must  then 
be  conceived,  not  as  a  set  of  social  relations,  but  as  a 
collective  organism,  with  life,  will,  purpose,  meaning  of 
its  own,  as  distinguished  from  the  Hfe,  will,  purpose, 
meaning  of  the  individual  members  of  it.*  He  accepts, 
it  would  appear,  almost  without  qualification,  the  biolog- 
ical analogy.  "The  study  of  the  social  value  of  individual 
men  no  more  constitutes  sociology  than  the  study  of  the 
cell-life  constitutes  human  physiology."  This  conception 
of  society  is  a  very  old  and  persistent  one.  It  may  be 
traced  back  through  many  able  thinkers  to  Plato.     It  is 

*Work  and  Wealth,  p  15. 

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Addresses  World's  Social  Progress  Congress 

a  mistake  to  claim,  as  Mr.  Hobson  by  implication  does, 
that  it  underlay  the  whole  social  life  and  thought  of  the 
ancient  world ;  but  as  soon  as  the  group  ceased  to  be  re- 
garded as  a  religious  unit  and  a  scientific  conception  of 
society  arose,  it  took  this  form.  It  is  still  potent  in  our 
present-day  thought. 

The  second  conception  is  at  the  opposite  extreme.  So- 
ciety is  only  a  mass  of  individuals,  fundamentally  inde- 
pendent of  one  another,  who  find  it  convenient  to  come  to 
terms  with  one  another  and  manage  somehow  or  other  to 
do  so,  and  live  together  according  to  rules  agreed  upon 
among  themselves.  The  social  compact  idea  of  Rousseau 
has  been  outgrown,  but  the  principle  of  it  still  underlies 
popular  social  thinking.  We  are  safe  in  saying  that  there 
can  not  be  found  a  trained  thinker  on  social  questions 
who  now  accepts  it. 

The  third  view,  and  the  one  to  which  I  hold,  is  that 
society  is  an  organism,  but  of  a  peculiar  type,  analogous 
to  the  biological  organism  in  only  some  particulars,  while 
in  some  most  important  respects  it  is  different.  A  society 
is  an  organism  in  that  it  is  composed  of  Hving  elements, 
has  a  distinct  and  definite  unity,  develops  from  within  in 
response  to  the  conditions  of  the  environment,  and  de- 
velops by  the  formation  of  organs  for  the  performance  of 
special  functions  in  the  interest  of  the  whole  body.  We 
may  go  further  and  say  that  these  organs  are  composed 
of  individual  elements  which  are  more  and  more  narrowly 
specialized  as  the  organism  develops  to  higher  and  higher 
stages.  But  further  than  this  no  significant  analogy  can 
be  traced.  In  it,  unlike  the  animal  organism,  there  is  not 
developed  a  centralized  consciousness  controlling  and 
correlating  the  activities  of  the  several  organs.  In  fact, 
in  the  development  of  society  the  tendency  seems  to  be  in 
the  opposite  direction.    What  we  see  here  is,  if  I  may  use 

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The  Principles  of  Social  Progress 

the  phrase,  distributed  consciousness ;  the  elementary  con- 
stituents— call  them  cells,  if  you  wish — develop  with  the 
higher  organization  of  society  a  more  and  more  intense 
individual  consciousness,  and  the  several  organs  of  the 
social  body  come  more  and  more  under  the  control  of 
these  individual  minds  acting  together.  This  is  the  very 
meaning  of  democracy,  expressed  in  terms  of  social  psy- 
chology. If  apart  from  these  there  is  an  over-conscious- 
ness, we  are  not  aware  of  it,  it  is  not  given  as  a  fact  of 
the  individual  consciousness,  and  we  cannot  locate  it;  it 
simply  lies  outside  the  range  of  perception  of  the  indi- 
vidual. To  assume  that  there  exists  such  a  collective 
consciousness  separate  from  individual  minds,  is  to  in- 
dulge in  pure  metaphysical  speculation.  These  individual 
minds  react  upon  and  influence  one  another  profoundly, 
and  relate  themselves  to  one  another  in  many  definite  and 
regular  ways.  They  are  "social  minds."  Indeed  a  gen- 
etic study  of  the  individual  mind  shows  that  there  is  no 
other  species  of  mind.  They  are  all  social.  They  are 
always  developed  in  a  social  medium.  To  be  conscious 
at  all,  in  any  clear  and  definite  sense  of  the  term,  is  to  be 
conscious  of  self  as  a  factor  in  a  social  situation.  As 
mental  development  goes  on  the  consciousness  of  self  in- 
creases in  clearness  and  intensity,  the  self  deepens  to  an 
interior  focus ;  at  the  same  time  the  social  content  of 
consciousness  not  only  becomes  clearer,  but  enlarges  to 
include  wider  circles  with  which  the  individual  feels  him- 
self to  be  vitally  related.  This  double  process  of  the  sub- 
jective concentration  and  the  objective  expansion  of  the 
content  of  consciousness  is  the  characteristic  mark  of 
mental  growth.  The  personality  more  and  more  realizes 
itself  as  an  individual  in  an  ever-widening  circle  of  con- 
scious relations  with  other  personalities.  One  becomes 
more  individual  and  more  social  at  the  same  time  and  in 

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Addresses  World's  Social  Progress  Congress 

the  same  process.  The  social  mind  is  in  the  individuals 
of  society.  The  social  will  is  not  a  separate  will  apart 
from  and  above  these  individual  minds ;  but  is  the  cor- 
relation or  organization  of  these  wills  brought  about  by 
their  reaction  upon  one  another.  It  is  something  more 
than  a  common  orientation  of  these  minds,  a  mere  coin- 
cidence of  their  determinations;  and  something  less  than 
the  determination  of  a  mind  distinct  from  and  above  them. 
The  social  mind  and  social  v/ill  are  located  in  individuals, 
if  they  are  ascertainable  by  us  at  all. 

I  dwell  upon  this  abstract  proposition  because  one's 
practical  conclusions  are  necessarily  influenced  by  the 
theoretical  considerations  which  lie  behind  them.  If  so- 
ciety is  a  great  being  with  a  mind  and  will  and  purpose 
of  its  own,  distinct  from  the  minds,  the  wills,  and  the 
purposes  of  individual  persons ;  if  it  is  itself  a  great 
personality,  in  which  you  and  I  play  the  part  played  by 
the  cells  in  the  animal  organism,  then  social  progress  must 
in  the  last  analysis  consist  in  advancing  toward  the  reali- 
zation of  that  over-individual  purpose.  But  what  is  that 
purpose  ?  How  can  I  tell  ?  Do  the  cells  in  my  body  know 
what  my  purpose  is?  Suppose  them  to  be  endowed  with 
individual  consciousness,  if  you  will  (though  that  is  pure 
assumption),  do  their  minds  include  the  consciousness  of 
my  purpose  ?  Certainly  I  cannot  discover  among  the  con- 
tents of  my  consciousness  any  awareness  or  intuition  of 
an  over-individual  purpose  which  this  assumed  over-indi- 
vidual being  cherishes  and  is  striving  to  realize.  I  have 
some  consciousness  of  my  own  purpose,  of  the  agreement 
of  my  thought  and  will  with  the  thoughts  and  wills  of 
many  of  my  fellow-beings,  and  also  of  the  disagreement 
of  my  own  thought  and  will  with  those  of  many  others; 
and  as  my  consciousness  expands  I  become  more  or  less 
aware  of  the  fact  that,  as  a  resultant  of  these  agreements 

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The  Principles  of  Social  Progress 

and  conflicts,  there  comes  a  collective  decision  as  well  as 
a  general  trend  of  the  collective  life.  But  if,  apart  from 
these  individual  minds  and  their  interactions,  there  is  a 
great,  central  Mind  of  the  social  body  which  is  directing 
all  toward  some  goal  of  its  own  choosing,  I  have  no 
consciousness  of  it;  and  no  function  of  my  mind  enables 
me  to  read  the  purpose  of  that  Mind  or  to  discover  what 
the  goal  is  which  it  has  chosen.  How,  then,  is  it  possible 
for  me  to  ascertain  what  its  standards  and  valuations  are, 
that  I  may  have  a  criterion  of  social  progress? 

It  may  be  said  that  history  will  give  us  the  clue.  But  I 
think  not.  In  the  first  place,  we  are  at  a  loss  to  know 
whether  each  human  group  has  an  over-individual  mind 
of  its  own.  If  so,  these  several  group-minds  do  not  seem 
to  be  in  agreement ;  and  if  progress  consists  in  advancing 
toward  the  realization  of  their  purposes,  then  it  means 
one  thing  in  one  place  and  a  different  thing  in  another 
place.  Or  is  there  one  general  social  consciousness  guid- 
ing the  development  of  humanity  as  a  whole,  and  correlat- 
ing these  several  group-minds  toward  an  end  that  lies  be- 
yond them  all?  If  there  be  such  a  supreme  central  mind 
of  humanity  guiding  the  total  movement  of  human  his- 
tory, is  it  free?  That  is,  is  the  goal  toward  which  it  is 
moving  predetermined  for  it?  If  free,  does  the  goal  of 
its  choice  remain  always  the  same?  Can  it  change  its 
purpose?  With  this  theory  we  are  left  free  to  fly  on  the 
wings  of  speculation  through  empty  space  over  the  vast, 
tossing  ocean  of  historical  change,  without  chart  or  com- 
pass to  guide  us.  All  that  we  can  say  is  that  progress 
must  consist  in  advancing  toward  the  end  chosen  by  this 
super-personal  mind,  but  what  that  end  is,  we  are  without 
any  sure  means  of  ascertaining. 

But  another  question  of  great  importance  arises.  Do 
the  interests  of  this  assumed,  super-individual  being  co- 

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Addresses  World's  Social  Progress  Congress 

incide  with  the  interests  of  the  individuals  composing  it? 
Here  again  we  are  without  any  sure  answer.  Evidently 
we  can  never  be  sure  that  they  do;  and  the  assumption, 
tacit  or  expressed,  in  the  writings  of  the  social  philoso- 
phers who  maintain  this  theory  is  that  these  individual 
and  over-individual  interests  do  at  least  often  conflict,  and 
that  it  is  not  un frequently  necessary  for  the  interests  of 
the  individual  to  be  absolutely  sacrificed  as  the  great 
Social  Being  moves  toward  the  realization  of  its  own 
ends.  But  if  true,  it  lands  us  in  an  ethical  contradiction 
from  which  there  is  no  escape;  nay,  it  leaves  us  without 
any  ascertainable,  ethical  standard  that  is  at  all  sure. 
For  on  this  theory  the  final  criterion  of  right  must  be  co- 
operation with  the  super-personal  being  in  the  attainment 
of  its  chosen  ends ;  but  what  that  end  is,  must  ever  re- 
main uncertain  to  the  limited  consciousness  of  individual 
minds.  We  may  be  told  that  a  sane,  social  poHcy  consists 
in  making  "provision  for  harmonizing  the  order  and  the 
growth  of  the  narrower  and  the  wider  organism,"  which 
would  be  quite  reasonable  if  first  there  were  any  sure  way 
of  knowing  definitely  the  purpose  of  the  "wider"  or  super- 
individual  organism,  so  far  as  it  may  be  different  from 
that  of  the  "narrower,"  that  is,  the  individual  organisms. 
I  am  profoundly  convinced  that  this  theory  introduces 
a  confusion  which  is  both  unnecessary  and  interminable 
into  the  effort  to  define  a  standard  of  social  progress. 

On  the  other  hand,  let  us  approach  the  question  from 
the  point  of  view  of  the  third  conception  of  society.  Ac- 
cording to  this,  all  real  values  must  in  the  last  analysis  be 
individual.  There  is  no  consciousness  except  in  individ- 
ual organisms.  Where  there  is  no  consciousness  there 
are  no  values,  for  valuation  is  a  conscious  process.  We 
may  speak  of  objective  values;  but  that  is  only  the  attri- 
bution of  subjective  meanings  to  objective  things.   Things 

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The  Principles  of  Social  Progress 

in  themselves,  that  is,  apart  from  their  relations  to  con- 
scious beings,  are  neither  good  nor  bad,  neither  beautiful 
nor  ugly,  neither  pleasant  nor  unpleasant.  These  and  all 
other  qualities  are  only  names  for  the  meanings  which 
things  have  for  conscious  beings.  They  indicate  forms 
or  modes  of  consciousness.  These  propositions  carry 
with  them  the  inevitable  inference  that  social  conditions 
and  poHcies  are  good  or  bad  only  because  they  promote 
or  hinder  the  welfare  of  individual  persons.  A  social 
organism,  which  really  is  only  a  system  of  psychical  rela- 
tions among  the  members  of  a  group,  has  no  conscious- 
ness apart  from  the  minds  of  those  related  persons  and 
therefore  has  no  values  to  realize  or  to  conserve  apart 
from  its  meaning  for  their  welfare.  That  system  has 
unity  and  is  continually  undergoing  modification  and  de- 
velopment in  certain,  regular  ways,  according  to  which 
these  minds  react  upon  one  another  in  striving  to  realize 
their  several  interests.  The  social  organism,  therefore,  is 
only  a  medium  in  and  through  which  its  conscious  con- 
stituents, human  beings,  may  realize  their  welfare. 

This  raises  a  question  that  involves  the  fundamental 
meaning  of  life.  What  is  the  welfare  of  a  human  being? 
Confining  ourselves  yet  a  while  longer  to  general  princi- 
ples, we  may  say  that  a  human  being's  highest  welfare 
consists  in  realizing  the  maximum  possibilities  of  his  hu- 
manity, the  development  of  his  personality  to  the  highest 
possible  point.  Time  forbids  an  attempt  to  demonstrate 
in  detail  the  truth  of  this  proposition.  To  my  mind  it  is 
hardly  open  to  question.  It  is  the  nature  of  a  living  or- 
ganism to  develop  its  potentiality.  To  such  an  organism 
everything  is  injurious  which  defeats  or  hinders  this 
process  ;  everything  advantageous  which  furthers  it.  But 
a  human  personality  is  distinguished  from  lower  organ- 
isms by  the  fact  that  it  must  work  out  its  destiny  on  the 

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Addresses  World's  Social  Progress  Congress 

ethical  level  of  life.  As  it  develops  it  assumes  one  of  two 
types ;  it  must  be  organized  either  around  some  dominant 
motive  zvhich  is  indifferent  or  opposed  to  the  well-being 
of  the  group  of  which  it  is  a  member;  or  around  the  well- 
being  of  the  group  as  its  controlling  motive.  In  the  first 
case  the  well-being  of  its  fellows  becomes  insignificant 
or  incidental  or  subsidiary;  in  the  latter  case  the  well- 
being  of  others,  that  is,  of  the  group,  as  it  is  the  central 
and  dominant  motive,  subordinates  to  itself  all  other  con- 
siderations and  excludes  those  that  are  inconsistent  with 
it.  There  is  a  third  conceivable  possibility,  namely,  that 
the  personality  should  organize  itself  as  an  ellipse,  of 
which  the  foci  would  be  two  co-ordinate  motives — the 
first,  the  interests  of  the  self  as  distinguished  from  the 
interests  of  the  group;  the  second,  the  interests  of  the 
group  as  distinct  from  the  interests  of  self.  But  could 
such  a  bi-focal  personality  ever  attain,  or,  at  any  rate, 
maintain  an  equilibrium  between  these  dominant  but  dis- 
tinct and  co-ordinate  motives  ?  I  think  not.  I  grant  that 
some,  perhaps  many,  personaHties  do  approximate  this 
type  of  organization.  But  their  moral  life  is  an  unstable 
equihbrium.  In  fact  they  really  alternate  between  the 
first  and  second  types.  Sometimes  the  one,  sometimes 
the  other  motive  is  in  the  ascendant;  and  gradually  they 
tend  to  crystallize  into  one  or  the  other  of  these  types. 
Our  moral  intuitions  attest  that  the  second  type  of  per- 
sonality is  the  higher,  that  is,  the  more  truly,  fully,  and 
nobly  human.  The  greatest  moral  leaders  have  been  men 
of  this  type ;  especially  was  he  who  has  gradually  and  irre- 
sistibly won  his  way  to  the  supreme  moral  leadership  of 
the  race. 

If  now  with  this  conception  of  society,  we  examine  the 
past  experience  of  the  race  and  try  to  gather  from  the 
vast  series  of  its  changes  its  general  meaning,  we  shall 

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The  Principles  of  Social  Progress 

find  that  we  hold  in  our  hand  a  most  valuable  clue.  We 
shall  find,  I  think,  that  the  evolution  of  human  life  with 
all  its  variations,  shifts,  confusions,  progressions,  retro- 
gressions, and  crises,  resolve  itself  into  three  essential 
processes : 

I.  The  human  groups  that  at  first  lead  an  independent, 
or  relatively  independent,  Hfe  increase  in  numbers,  ex- 
tent, and  the  complexity  of  their  organization.  Of  course, 
some  of  them  disappear,  sooner  or  later,  or  are  absorbed 
by  others ;  and  none  of  them  can  count  upon  a  straight 
lineal  development  without  blending  with  others  in  some 
way  and  in  some  degree.  The  tendency  is  toward  the 
development  of  larger  and  still  larger  organized  groups, 
and  along  with  this  goes  the  increasing  complexity  of 
their  internal  life.  As  one  surveys  that  process,  and  sees 
how  steady  the  trend  is  in  that  direction,  it  is  hard  to  re- 
sist the  conclusion  that  the  human  race  is  destined  to  be 
organized  as  one  immense  group  with  an  almost  infinite 
complexity  of  interdependent  functions.  But  does  not  the 
great  conflict  that  shakes  the  world  to-day  speak  in  tones 
of  thunder  a  point-blank  denial  of  this  prospect  ?  Not  to 
one  who  has  studied  the  whole  history  of  this  process. 
To  my  mind  the  boom  of  the  most  powerful  artillery  the 
world  has  ever  seen,  the  terrific  bursting  of  aerial  bombs, 
and  the  deadly,  under-sea  explosion  of  the  torpedo  are 
but  the  loud  proclamation  of  the  fact  that  the  race  is 
already  partly  organized  as  an  economic  and  cultural  unit 
and  that  political  isolation  and  opposition  cannot  much 
longer  obstruct  the  process  of  bringing  all  sections  of  hu- 
manity into  this  organic  unity. 

II.  Meantime  there  goes  on  a  parallel  process  of  "civ- 
ilization," or  the  building  up  of  culture.  It  consists  essen- 
tially in  preserving  and  transmitting  to  succeeding  gener- 
ations the  increasingly  varied  experiences  and  achieve- 

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Addresses  World's  Social  Progress  Congress 

ments  of  the  race.  First,  there  is  the  growth  of  institu- 
tions, that  is,  more  or  less  fixed  methods  of  adjusting  men 
to  one  another  in  the  more  important  spheres  of  human 
interest,  such  as  the  poHtical,  the  economic,  the  religious, 
and  the  educational.  Second,  ideals  and  standards  of  val- 
uation arise  and  become  authoritative  in  the  various  sec- 
tions of  society.  Third,  knowledge  increases.  What  for- 
mer generations  have  done  and  thought  is  not  suffered 
to  sink  into  oblivion,  but  is  preserved  in  records;  while 
the  vision  of  men  is  not  only  extended  backward,  but  is 
broadened  laterally,  so  to  speak,  to  take  in  what  their 
contemporaries  are  doing  and  thinking.  Of  equal  or  even 
greater  importance  is  the  fact  that  by  accumulated  ex- 
perience man's  knowledge  of  nature  is  extended  and  made 
more  definite;  he  learns  to  control  and  organize  natural 
forces ;  he  builds  around  himself  an  artificial  environment 
which  gradually  assumes  an  importance  in  his  life  greater 
even  than  the  natural  one  in  the  midst  of  which  he  began 
his  career  in  the  world ;  and  he  creates  from  the  raw 
materials  of  nature  a  vast  store  of  economic  goods  for 
the  sustenance  and  comfort  of  life.  As  the  knowledge  of 
history  and  nature  increases  and  is  clarified  by  critical 
processes,  the  sciences  and  arts  develop.  Thus  little  by 
little  grows  the  vast  but  incomplete  structure  of  human 
civilization,  to  which  each  succeeding  generation  is  born 
heir  and  to  which  it  adds  the  results  of  its  own  thought 
and  endeavor. 

III.  It  appears  that  along  with  the  enlargement  and 
growing  complexity  of  the  group-life  and  the  develop- 
ment of  culture,  the  men  themselves  become  more  indi- 
vidualized, especially  in  their  mental  and  spiritual  organ- 
ization. On  the  average,  each  comes  to  possess  a  more 
peculiar  and  pronounced  personality.  Each  appropriates 
and  enjoys  more  freely  whatever  of  the  accumulated  stock 

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The  Principles  of  Social  Progress 

of  social  goods  his  inborn  tastes  and  capacities  call  for 
and  enable  him  to  utilize.  He  becomes  more  free  to  move 
hither  and  thither  over  wide  areas  of  the  earth ;  more 
free  to  choose  his  companions,  his  occupations,  his  rela- 
tions, the  end  for  which  he  will  live.  The  grip  of  the 
"dead  hand"  is  relaxed;  the  tyranny  of  blind  custom  is 
weakened.  The  individual,  on  the  average,  becomes  more 
rationally  self-directing;  his  consciousness  more  alert; 
his  will  more  autonomous;  his  conscience  less  subject  to 
external  authority.  Does  this  mean  the  decay  of  the  sense 
of  obligation  and  the  growth  of  Hcense?  It  may.  In- 
deed, there  have  been  stages  in  the  great  process  when  it 
apparently  did  mean  that.  There  have  come  epochs  of 
moral  disintegration  and  confusion  when  the  moral  deficit 
became  so  great  that  the  social  order  fell  to  pieces,  or 
was  held  together  by  force  alone;  but  in  such  times,  if 
one  looks  around,  he  will  see  emerging  a  movement  for 
the  reorganization  of  the  moral  life  on  a  higher  plane, 
and  in  the  long  run  the  sense  of  obligation  will  be  both 
deepened  and  extended  in  its  range.  This  was  eminently 
true  in  the  slow  organization  of  the  modern  world  out  of 
the  ruins  of  the  ancient  order;  let  us  believe  that  it  will 
be  true  in  the  new  era  of  human  history  that  must  follow 
this  epoch  of  economic,  political,  and  spiritual  crisis. 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  development  of  the  moral  Hfe, 
both  in  the  deepening  and  the  extension  of  the  sense  of 
moral  obligation,  is  an  indispensable  part  of  the  general 
social  processes  I  am  describing.  The  enlargement  of  the 
group  must  be  accompanied  by  the  extension  of  the  area 
of  the  obligation  the  individual  feels;  and  the  growing 
complexity  of  its  Hfe,  since  it  necessarily  brings  with  it 
a  greater  degree  of  interdependence,  must  emphasize  the 
duty  of  each  to  all  and  of  all  to  each.  Otherwise  the  so- 
ciety will  break  down  through  the  lack  of  an  ethical  bond 

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Addresses  World's  Social  Progress  Congress 

strong  enough  to  hold  all  its  members  together  in  a  cor- 
porate life;  internal  antagonisms  will  develop  which  will 
destroy  the  social  unity  and  split  the  body  into  war- 
ring factions,  or  shiver  it  into  a  complete  anarchy  of  dis- 
cordant elements.  It  may  be  laid  down  as  a  sociological 
law  that  the  expansion  of  the  group  and  its  internal  dif- 
ferentiation require  both  the  lengthening  and  the  strength- 
ening of  the  ethical  bond,  for  the  reason  that  the  bond 
must  hold  together  a  large  number  of  men  more  distantly 
separated  in  space  and  more  dependent  upon  one  another 
in  their  increasingly  specialized  activities.  There  must 
grow  up  a  sense  of  community  of  life  with  a  wider  group 
and  a  keener  realization  on  the  part  of  each  individual 
that  he  is  a  trustee  of  the  interests  of  all  the  others. 

I  venture  to  assert  that  the  chief  break  upon  the  wheel 
of  social  progress  has  always  been  the  insufficient  realiza- 
tion of  a  higher  ethical  Hfe  to  correspond  with  the  more 
developed  social  situation.  The  ethical  development  seems 
to  lag  behind  the  processes  of  expansion  and  differenti- 
ation of  the  group  life.  As  an  illuminating  example,  con- 
sider the  prophetic  period  in  Hebrew  history.  Israel  was 
passing  out  of  the  simple  society  of  the  tribal  period  into 
the  more  comprehensive  and  complex  life  of  the  state. 
The  tribal  organization  was  undergoing  inevitable  disin- 
tegration in  the  process.  The  ethical  life  was  lagging  in 
its  progress.  The  prophets  were  the  men  who  took  the 
ethical  principles  of  the  primitive  period  that  was  passing, 
unfolded  their  deeper  meaning  and  gave  them  a  wider 
application  to  the  broader  conditions  of  a  national  life. 
Doubtless  all  the  earher  peoples  passed  through  a  similar 
socio-ethical  crisis ;  though  nowhere  else,  we  must  admit, 
were  the  appropriate  principles  so  strongly  grasped,  so 
clearly  and  persuasively  expounded  and  given  the  author- 
ity  of   such  powerful   religious   sanctions.      If   modern 

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The  Principles  of  Social  Progress 

civilization  collapses  it  will,  I  think,  be  due  to  the  fact 
that  our  social  order  will  have  become  so  vast  and  intri- 
cate that  the  ordinary  people  on  whom  such  heavy  respon- 
sibilities are  imposed  are  unequal  to  the  proper  perform- 
ance of  their  social  tasks,  because  their  ethical  develop- 
ment has  not  kept  pace  with  the  expansion  and  complica- 
tion of  their  social  relations.  Certainly  there  are  ominous 
indications  that  such  an  ethical  failure  may  be  among  the 
possibilities  of  the  not  distant  future.  I  am  neither  pre- 
dicting nor  expecting  such  a  catastrophe,  but  it  is  not 
wise  for  our  optimism  to  blind  itself  to  the  possibilities 
of  the  modern  situation.  If  it  should  occur  it  would 
only  be  a  repetition,  on  a  more  colossal  scale,  of  the  de- 
cline and  fall  of  the  ancient  civilization,  and  due  primarily 
to  the  same  cause;  and,  of  course,  would  be  preliminary 
to  a  new  and  finer  era  of  human  development. 

Strictly  speaking,  these  stages  of  moral  progress,  which 
are  so  striking  a  feature  of  the  general  broadening  and 
complication  of  the  social  Hfe,  are  not  introduced  by  the 
discovery  and  adoption  of  a  new  moral  principle,  but  are 
marked  by  a  more  subjective  realization  and  a  broader 
application  of  one  great  principle  which  lies  at  the  basis 
of  moral  conduct — the  "consciousness  of  kind,"  as  Pro- 
fessor Giddings  has  called  it,  or  group-consciousness.  It 
is  an  obvious  fact  that  men  do  not  feel  moral  obligation 
beyond  the  Hmits  of  their  conscious  community  of  life, 
and  feel  it  in  proportion  to  the  degree  of  that  conscious- 
ness. Within  the  circle  in  which  it  is  felt  it  fluctuates  as 
from  time  to  time  this  consciousness  varies  in  acuteness. 
I  do  not  mean  to  say  that  no  other  consideration  influ- 
ences or  modifies  one's  sense  of  obligation.  When  one 
man  enters  into  a  special  relation  with  another,  certain 
specific  duties  are,  of  course,  involved  in  that  relation. 
When  definite  agreements  are  made  with  others,  the  obli- 

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Addresses  World's  Social  Progress  Congress 

gation  to  keep  faith  is,  of  course,  felt  to  be  binding. 
But  the  interesting  fact  is  that  these  particular  obliga- 
tions assumed  in  contracts  come  under  the  general  prin- 
ciple just  stated.  If  one  has  no  ''consciousness  of  kind" 
with  the  other  party  of  the  contract;  or  if  for  any  reason 
that  consciousness  becomes  weak  or  disappears,  the  con- 
tractual obligation  varies  accordingly  as  to  the  feeling  of 
its  moral  imperativeness.  This  is  the  reason  why  treaty 
obligations  between  nations  snap  like  weak  cords  under 
the  strain  of  national  interest.  This  is  the  explanation 
of  the  strange  ethical  paradox  witnessed  every  day  upon 
the  field  of  battle,  when  at  one  moment  a  soldier  is  doing 
his  utmost  to  take  the  life  of  a  soldier  in  the  opposite  line, 
and  at  the  next  moment  is  equally  solicitous  to  save  his 
life  as  a  wounded  captive.  At  one  moment  the  national 
group — consciousness  is  in  the  ascendant  and  subordi- 
nates or  suppresses  the  broader  human  group-conscious- 
ness;  while  at  the  next  moment  the  situation  is. reversed. 
And  the  singular  thing  is  that  the  soldier  feels  that  he  is 
doing  his  duty  in  both  instances.  In  this  principle  is 
found  the  explanation  of  the  ethical  paradox  that  a  man 
whose  consciousness  of  kind  has  never  been  expanded  be- 
yond racial  lines,  or  is  feeble  beyond  those  limits,  will 
treat  persons  of  another  race  with  indifference  or  even 
brutality,  though  he  may  be  normally  observant  of  moral 
obligations  toward  persons  of  his  own  race.  A  man 
whose  conscious  community  of  life  has  never  been  ex- 
panded in  vigor  beyond  the  limits  of  his  family,  his  circle 
of  kinship  in  the  narrower  sense,  but  is  relatively  strong 
within  those  limits,  will  be  rather  keenly  solicitous  of  the 
interests  of  those  within  the  short  radius  of  his  group- 
consciousness,  but  coolly  indifferent  to  the  welfare  of  men 
who  are  so  unfortunate,  or  fortunate,  as  not  to  be  in- 
cluded among  his  near  kindred. 

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The  Principles  of  Social  Progress 

The  sense  of  moral  obligation  extends,  then,  in  con- 
centric circles  as  one's  ''consciousness  of  kind"  expands  to 
wider  groups  of  those  who  are  felt  to  be  his  fellow-men. 
But  in  the  process  the  sense  of  kinship  becomes,  so  to 
speak,  refined.  It  becomes  less  physical  and  more  spirit- 
ual. The  sense  of  physical  kinship  does  not  indeed  disap- 
pear; the  ''consciousness  of  kind"  still  involves  in  some 
measure  the  realization  that  a  common  blood  flows  in  the 
veins  of  all  within  the  circle.  But  it  is  more  and  more 
characterized  by  the  reaHzation  of  a  common  psychical 
life,  a  community  of  spiritual  nature,  as  the  group  with 
which  one  feels  himself  identified  grows  larger  and  larger. 
At  the  same  time  it  normally  becomes  more  subjective, 
more  inward ;  the  corresponding  obligation  comes  to  be 
less  and  less  an  attitude  imposed  by  custom,  and  is  more 
rationally  conceived  as  a  personal  duty.  Like  a  tree  it 
sends  its  roots  down  deeper  into  the  individual  personality 
as  it  spreads  its  branches  to  cover  larger  areas  of  sur- 
rounding humanity.    It  must  deepen  as  it  expands. 

We  may  sum  up  this  general  and  somewhat  abstract 
discussion  which  has  thus  far  occupied  us  as  follows: 
humanity  is  continually  aggregating  in  larger  groups; 
the  organization  of  these  groups  is  continually  becoming 
more  complex  and  its  specialized  activities  more  inter- 
dependent, while  the  value  of  individual  personality  is 
more  strongly  emphasized  and  the  sphere  of  its  indirect 
influence  is  enlarged.  A  necessary  corollary  of  this 
double  process  is  that  the  sense  of  moral  obligation  must 
at  once  extend  and  deepen;  which  means  that  the  con- 
sciousness of  kinship  must  become  more  spiritual  and 
expand  to  include  wider  circles  of  humanity.  The  inevi- 
table goal  of  this  development  would  seem  to  be  the 
organization  of  the  human  race  into  one  group,  with  an 
ethical  life  which  springs  from  a  lively  sense  of  spiritual 

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Addresses  World's  Social  Progress  Congress 

kinship  with  all  men,  so  that  the  love  and  service  of  hu- 
manity will  become  the  dominant  motive  of  the  average 
man.  This  goal  seems  far  away,  but  the  development  of 
humanity  so  far,  when  properly  read,  seems  to  indicate 
that  it  is  the  goal.  Hitherto  the  evolution  toward  this 
has  been  punctuated  by  great  crises  of  which  apparent 
moral  failure  and  social  disintegration  have  been  the  out- 
standing features;  and  other  such  epochs  may  await  us 
in  the  future.  Those  epochs  in  which  the  wave  appeared 
so  disastrously  to  recede  were  due  to  the  fact  that  the 
expansion  and  organization  of  the  group-life  outran  the 
process  of  socializing  the  units  of  society.  If  these  state- 
ments are  correct,  it  would  seem  to  be  the  inevitable  in- 
ference that  social  progress  consists  in  advancement  to- 
ward this  goal,  and  that  this  advancement  must  proceed 
by  more  thoroughly  democratizing  and  moralizing  the  en- 
tire social  order  as  it  grows  more  extensive  and  compli- 
cated. 

Turning  now  from  this  general  discussion,  let  us  con- 
sider the  application  of  the  principles  stated  to  some 
particular  spheres  of  social  life. 

I.  The  political  sphere.  In  this  sphere  progress  Hes  in 
bringing  all  the  political  functions  more  and  more  directly 
under  the  control  of  the  people,  and  in  directing  all  polit- 
ical activities  more  consciously  to  the  realization  of  the 
highest  ethical  ideals.  The  vast  extent  and  highly  com- 
plex organization  of  modern  States  constitute  a  difficult 
problem  for  democracy.  When  the  political  group  was 
small  and  compact  and  the  political  machinery  was  not 
so  very  elaborate,  as  in  the  ancient  and  medieval  city- 
states,  the  problem  of  democratic  control  was  difficult 
enough;  but  it  was  not  comparable  to  the  difficulty  pre- 
sented by  our  great,  modern,  territorial  States.  When 
the  modern  States  arose  they  included  wide  territories 

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The  Principles  of  Social  Progress 

whose  population  was  sparse  and  for  the  most  part  aggre- 
gated about  local  centers  between  which  intercommunica- 
tion was  slow  and  infrequent;  and  the  solution  of  the 
problem  of  popular  control  was  sought  and  fairly  well 
secured  by  emphasizing  local  self-government,  keeping 
centralized  state  authority  at  a  minimum,  and  delegating 
the  functions  of  government  to  representatives  period- 
ically elected  by  the  people.  But  this  method  is  proving 
inadequate  to  the  present  situation  and  is  breaking  down 
before  our  eyes.  Modern  society  no  longer  consists  of 
relatively  isolated,  semi-independent  local  groups.  There 
are  still  centers  of  social  life;  but  those  centers  are  vastly 
larger  and  more  complex ;  are  knit  together  by  numerous 
and  various  lines  of  communication  and  are  integrated  in 
a  highly  centralized  and  interdependent  system  of  na- 
tional, or  more  properly,  international  life.  The  political 
machinery  has  followed  this  development  and  become 
extremely  complex,  whether  we  regard  the  methods  for 
securing  the  expression  and  registration  of  the  popular 
will  or  the  methods  for  putting  that  will  into  execution. 
From  the  people  as  sovereign  through  the  political  ma- 
chinery back  to  the  people  as  subjects,  is  a  long  and 
crooked  road  which  runs  through  many  mountain  defiles 
and  many  dark  and  dangerous  jungles,  and  is  frequented 
by  highwaymen  all  along.  The  result  is  that  the  will  of 
the  people  is  imperfectly  ascertained,  inadequately  ex- 
pressed, frequently  misinterpreted,  and  was  for  a  time 
openly  defied.  The  representative  system  suited  the  con- 
ditions under  which  it  grew  up ;  it  does  not  suit  the  con- 
ditions under  which  it  is  now  giving  way.  The  machinery 
has  become  so  complex  that  only  an  expert  who  devotes 
himself  to  the  art,  can  manipulate  it.  Hence  the  emer- 
gence of  the  political  boss  and  his  machine,  an  entirely 
logical  and  inevitable  development  of  the  attempt  to  oper- 

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Addresses  World's  Social  Progress  Congress 

ate  a  representative  system  of  government  under  condi- 
tions to  which  it  is  no  longer  adapted. 

It  is  evident  that  we  must  profoundly  modify  the  repre- 
sentative system.  We  must  establish  a  more  direct  con- 
nection between  the  people  and  the  government,  which,  in 
theory,  is  the  expression  of  their  will.  I  shall  not  now 
enter  into  a  discussion  of  the  methods  proposed  for  secur- 
ing this  result.  Suffice  it  to  say  that  we  must  move — in- 
deed, are  necessarily  now  moving — toward  a  real  govern- 
ment by  public  opinion.  The  press  must  more  and  more 
become  the  forum  for  poHtical  discussion,  rather  than 
the  party  headquarters,  or  secluded  committee  rooms,  or 
even  the  halls  of  legislation.  Proposed  measures  must  be 
threshed  out  in  the  public  press — which  should  be  made 
a  public  press  rather  than  the  press  of  private  interests — 
and  in  groups  of  citizens  assembled  for  the  free  and  open 
discussion  of  matters  pertaining  to  the  common  weal, 
until  public  thought  crystallizes  into  public  decision. 
Representative  assemblies,  if  any  function  shall  ulti- 
mately be  left  them,  must  act  simply  as  the  agents  for 
registering  that  decision.  The  people  must  learn  to  vote 
for  measures  rather  than  for  men,  and  be  given  the  op- 
portunity to  do  so.  Along  this  line  we  must  proceed  to 
dethrone  the  silent  boss  and  the  voluble  demagogue,  who 
is  usually  the  "voice  of  his  master,"  and  to  enthrone  the 
thoughtful  citizen.  Or  will  it  be  the  enthronement  of  the 
mob  ?  So  it  is  claimed  by  some  who  look  with  apprehen- 
sion upon  the  growing  unpopularity  of  the  present  sys- 
tem. But  if  that  be  true,  our  case  is  a  desperate  one 
indeed.  To  save  our  political  life  from  the  tyranny  of 
the  boss,  we  appeal  to  the  people.  To  save  it  from 
the  tyranny  of  the  mob,  must  we  take  refuge  again  under 
the  dominion  of  the  boss?  Surely  we  are  not  to  see- 
saw eternally  between  these  alternatives.    Can  the  crude- 

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The  Principles  of  Social  Progress 

ness,  haste,  and  passion  of  popular  thought  be  eliminated 
only  by  passing  it  through  the  sieve  of  machine  politics  ? 
If  our  only  alternatives  are  the  boss  and  the  mob,  it  is 
like  making  a  choice  between  the  claws  of  the  tiger  and 
the  teeth  of  the  wolf.  I  do  not  think  that  we  are  reduced 
to  that  extremity,  because  I  believe  that  the  people  can,  by 
the  very  practice  of  democracy,  be  educated  sufficiently  to 
pass  intelHgent  and  honest  judgment  upon  public  inter- 
ests. It  is  a  significant  fact  that  those  who  are  standing 
most  stoutly  against  reform  movements  are  also  bitterlv 
opposed  to  the  movement  toward  bringing  the  people  into 
more  direct  control  of  public  affairs.  This  does  not  mean 
that  there  are  not  among  the  opponents  of  this  movement 
some  able,  honest,  and  unselfish  men.  There  have  been 
some  able,  honest,  and  unselfish  men  opposed  to  every 
movement  ever  started  in  the  interest  of  humanity.  The 
simple  fact  is  that  the  evils  of  our  present  political  life 
do  not  indicate  a  failure  of  democracy,  but  the  failure  of 
a  system  which,  by  reason  of  changing  social  conditions, 
has  gradually  grown  up  as  a  substitute  for  democracy. 

This  leads  me  to  emphasize  the  second  requisite  of  po- 
litical progress — the  moralizing  of  political  activity,  the 
conversion  of  all  the  organs  and  functions  of  political  life 
into  means  for  the  realization  of  our  highest  ethical 
ideals.  This,  of  course,  is  much  more  easily  said  than 
done,  but  hitherto  political  progress  has  come  along  this 
line,  and  along  this  line  it  must  continue. 

It  has  been  ably  maintained  that  the  state  is  an  institu- 
tion which  arose  as  a  means  of  economic  exploitation."^' 
This  theory  of  the  origin  of  the  state  does  not  seem  to 
me  to  include  and  explain  all  the  facts,  but  beyond  ques- 
tion it  contains  a  great  truth.  The  state  has  never 
entirely  lost  this  character.  What  is  law  to-day  but  the 
♦See   The  State,   by   Oppenheimer. 

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Addresses  World's  Social  Progress  Congress 

unstable  equilibrium  reached  by  the  pressure  of  various 
groups,  each  of  which  is  seeking  to  realize  its  own  par- 
ticular interest?  The  statement  is  made,  and  truly,  that 
''the  balance  of  the  group  pressures  is  the  existing  state 
of  society."*  And  the  most  active  and  powerful  of  those 
groups  have  always  been  economic  interests  whose  mo- 
tive has  been  gain  and  whose  chief  method  has  been  ex- 
ploitation. Even  when  the  groups  have  not  been  eco- 
nomic in  the  technical  sense,  they  have  usually  been  actu- 
ated by  the  economic  motive.  In  all  the  past,  down  to 
this  present  moment,  the  government  has  been  a  special- 
ized agency  through  the  control  of  which  these  gain-seek- 
ing groups  have  in  proportion  to  the  measures  of  their 
strength  exploited  other  groups.  But  the  process  of  mor- 
alizing government  has  been  going  on.  Slowly,  much  loo 
slowly,  the  conviction  has  been  gaining  ground  that  the 
government  has  become  a  constructive  co-operation  for 
the  common  weal  rather  than  an  unstable  equilibrium  of 
conflicting  interests.  Political  progress  may  be  measured 
exactly  by  the  growth  of  this  conception.  The  govern- 
ment must  cease  entirely  to  be  the  instrument  of  the 
dominant,  self-seeking  forces  in  society.  The  negative 
theory  that  it  is  merely  the  umpire  of  the  game  in  which 
conflicting  groups  are  seeking  their  own  selfish  ends,  must 
also  be  abandoned,  if  progress  is  to  mark  our  future. 
The  state  must  set  itself  the  task  of  positively  realizing  a 
great  ethical  ideal,  the  personal  development  of  all  its 
citizens,  and  shape  its  policies  to  that  end.  Let  not  this 
form  of  statement  carry  with  it  the  implication  that  tlie 
state  is  something  separate  from  and  above  the  body  of 
its  citizens.  This  notion,  brought  over  from  the  days  of 
royal  absolutism,  has  led  some  people  to  characterize  as 
"paternalism"  the  ideal  of  government  I  am  contending 
*Bentley's   "The  Process   of   Government,''  p.   259. 

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The  Principles  of  Social  Progress 

for.  The  term  is  singularly  unfitting.  Paternalism  in  a 
real  democracy  is  impossible.  When  a  democracy  sets 
itself  this  task,  it  is  "fraternalism,"  and  without  it  there 
is,  in  fact,  nothing  but  a  democracy  in  name.  What  I  am 
pleading  for  is  the  building  up  in  the  minds  of  the  people 
a  higher  and  better  standard  of  social  ethics ;  the  educa- 
tion of  the  people  to  realize  that  personal  development  is 
the  only  real  interest  of  any  man,  and  that  the  personality 
can  be  developed  on  the  moral  level  only  as  it  ceases  to  be 
self-centered.  They  should  be  brought  to  conceive  of  the 
state  as  a  constructive  institution  in  which  the  body  of 
the  citizens  co-operate  through  the  instrumentality  of  the 
law  for  this  high  purpose.  Thus  law  becomes  relatively 
less  a  mere  protection  of  rights  and  relatively  more  an 
authoritative  definition  of  duties  within  a  given  realm  of 
social  relations.  At  bottom  the  issue  is  this:  Shall  the 
state  be  used  as  an  instrumentality  for  promoting  the 
economic  interest  of  certain  groups  of  the  people  or  as 
an  instrumentality  for  promoting  the  general  well-being 
of  all  the  people. 

II.  The  economic  sphere.  I  have  just  said  that  law 
must  more  and  more  become  an  authoritative  definition 
of  positive  duty  within  a  certain  sphere  of  social  relations. 
Economic  relations  have  always  been  the  principal  sphere 
of  political  activity,  and  never  so  obviously  as  in  the  pres- 
ent epoch;  but  economic  activities  have  been  less  demo- 
cratized and  less  moralized  than  any  other,  except  war 
itself,  and  the  chief  obstruction  to  political  progress  lies 
in  that  fact.  The  most  urgent  and  the  most  fundamental 
issue  of  our  time  is  whether  economic  life  can  be  demo- 
cratized and  moralized.  It  is  a  rather  bold  and  compre- 
hensive statement  to  make,  but  present  conditions  seem 
to  justify  us  in  saying  that  such  a  structural  and  ethical 
reorganization  of  industry  must  take  place  if  the  splendid 

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Addresses  World^s  Social  Progress  Congress 

march  of  our  civilization  is  not  to  end  in  disaster.  What 
I  mean  by  democratizing  industry  is  that  those  who  co- 
operate in  the  production  of  economic  values  must  also 
co-operate  in  determining  the  conditions  under  which  the 
work  is  done  and  in  the  division  of  the  products.  Those 
who  co-operate  in  the  production  are  divided  into  three 
general  classes — first,  those  who  do  in  the  main  the  brain 
work,  the  organizing  and  directing;  second,  those  who  do 
chiefly  the  physical  labor;  third,  the  pubHc,  whose  wants 
determine  the  value  of  the  products  and  whose  general 
interests  are  both  directly  and  indirectly  affected  by  the 
methods  of  production.  Of  course,  a  very  large  propor- 
tion of  the  persons  who  compose  the  public  themselves  be- 
long to  the  first  or  the  second  class  of  those  directly  en- 
gaged in  production,  so  far  as  one  or  two  industries  are 
concerned;  but  with  respect  to  other  industries  form  a 
part  of  "the  pubhc"  in  the  strict  sense  of  the  term.  For 
example,  the  organizers  and  working  men  of  the  trans- 
portation business  stand  in  the  first  and  second  classes 
with  respect  to  that  industry ;  but  with  respect  to  all  other 
industries,  in  the  third  class.  Now,  all  these  classes  must 
be  given  a  real  and  potent  voice  in  determining  the  pol- 
icies and  methods  of  a  given  industry  and  in  the  division 
of  the  values  which  they  have  jointly  created.  Whatever 
the  difficulties  involved  in  such  an  organization  of  in- 
dustry— and  I  realize  that  they  are  very  great — it  is  a 
requirement  of  elementary  justice  that  it  be  done.  In 
fact,  it  has  already  been  accomplished  in  small  part,  but 
through  the  method  of  conflict,  and  this  method  keeps 
alive  class  feeling  and  stimulates  suspicion,  if  not  hatred. 
We  must  strive  to  lift  the  whole  matter  out  of  this  atmos- 
phere of  strife  on  to  a  higher  ethical  level.  This  is  a 
necessary  condition  of  moraUzing  industry.    The  injustice 

382 


The  Principles  of  Social  Progress 

of  the  present  system  is  so  manifest  that  it  is  really  amaz- 
ing that  it  should  not  be  apparent  to  every  one. 

But  though  industrial  democracy  is  a  fundamental, 
ethical  requirement,  it  is  not  what  is  primarily  meant  by 
moralizing  economic  life.  The  phrase  is  used  to  indicate 
the  setting  of  distinctively  ethical  aims  for  all  forms  of 
economic  activity.  The  man  who  engages  in  any  occu- 
pation with  the  motive  of  gain  central  in  his  conscious- 
ness can  never  do  his  work  in  a  truly  ethical  spirit;  and 
the  average  man,  as  human  nature  is  constituted,  will, 
unless  deterred  by  external  prohibition,  fall  into  methods 
that  are  positively  immoral  even  according  to  present 
standards.  The  man  who  has  his  eyes  focused  upon  his 
own  interest  will,  by  a  psychological  law  almost  as  fixed 
as  that  of  gravitation,  be  unable  to  see  in  their  proper 
proportions  the  interests  of  other  men.  Other  men's  in- 
terests will  ordinarily  occupy  the  "fringe"  of  his  atten- 
tion. His  own  interest  will  be  magnified  and  the  inter- 
ests of  others  proportionally  dwarfed  in  his  consciousness. 
This  will  be  true  even  when  he  is  dealing  with  another 
man  face  to  face.  But  our  economic  system  is  to-day  so 
organized  that  it  does  not  bring  men  face  to  face  in  the 
greater  number  of  their  dealings.  It  is  a  vast  system  of 
corporate  activities  and  relations ;  it  does  not  bring  men 
into  immediate  contact  with  by  far  the  greater  number  of 
those  with  whom  they  are  related  through  these  activities. 
If  a  sort  of  moral  astigmatism  affects  the  vision  of  men 
when  they  have  business  dealing  directly  with  one  an- 
other, how  much  more  true  is  it  when  the  other  man  is 
not  in  sight  at  all,  and  perhaps  not  even  in  mind  except 
as  an  abstract  buyer  or  seller.  The  corporate  organiza- 
tion of  business  lends  itself  with  marvelous  ease  to  the 
selfish  exploitation  of  others — which  "others"  are  only 
so  many  impersonal  figures  upon  the  chess-board  of  the 

383 


Addresses  World's  Social  Progress  Congress 

economic  game.  It  is  obvious  that  the  more  highly  and 
widely  organized  occupational  activities  become,  the  more 
imperative  it  is  that  they  be  definitely  aimed  at  distinc- 
tively ethical  ends,  if  they  are  not  to  degenerate  into  cus- 
tomary means  of  exploiting  other  men.  I  do  not  beHeve 
that  any  system  of  external,  forcible  restraints,  however 
necessary  they  may  be  in  the  present  order  of  things,  can 
successfully  prevent  it.  At  best  they  can  only  make  more 
difficult  and  hinder  in  some  measure  the  exploiting  proc- 
ess. The  evil  will  not  be  remedied,  in  fact  will  not  in 
any  important  degree  be  reduced,  until  we  moralize  eco- 
nomic activities  by  bringing  them  under  the  law  of  public 
service,  and  setting  for  them  ethical  ends — or  the  ethical 
end,  the  welfare  of  all  the  people.  Can  any  one  tell  why 
men  should  not  enter  into  business,  organize  and  conduct 
industrial  and  commercial  corporations  for  the  conscious 
purpose  of  promoting  the  welfare  of  their  fellow-men? 
Impossible?  But  why?  Impracticable  in  the  present 
order  of  things?  So  much  the  worse  for  "the  present 
order  of  things."  The  purpose  of  human  life,  let  us 
remember,  is  not  to  preserve  the  present  order  of  things, 
but  to  promote  human  welfare. 

It  is,  of  course,  not  a  simple  matter  of  a  change  of 
mind  on  the  part  of  individuals  in  business.  The  indi- 
vidual is  implicated  in  a  vast  system  which  is  organized 
around  the  motive  of  financial  gain ;  and  this  materialistic 
motive,  which  is  non-ethical  always  and  often  positively 
immoral,  is  acutely  emphasized  by  the  necessity  of  com- 
peting with  others  in  the  same  field  of  industry.  It  is 
not  practicable,  therefore,  for  the  individual  to  throw  off 
the  dominion  of  this  motive  without  imminent  risk  of 
being  crowded  to  the  wall.  It  is  properly  a  question  of 
the  moral  reorganization  of  the  system  of  economic  life. 
That  is  a  large  undertaking,  and  may  involve  more  or 

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The  Principles  of  Social  Progress 

less  radical  changes  in  the  structure  of  economic  organ- 
ization; but  how  can  any  thoughtful  man  question  that 
we  must  move  along  this  Hne,  if  progress  is  not  to  be 
arrested  ?  The  opinion  is  often  expressed  that  the  motive 
of  material  gain  is  the  only  stimulus  powerful  enough  to 
keep  the  machinery  of  modern  industry  going  at  full 
speed,  and  that  to  substitute  for  it  a  motive  far  more 
noble  but  far  less  potent  would  result  in  such  a  decrease 
of  production  as  would  impoverish  all  and  reduce  the 
poorer  classes  to  sheer  destitution.  If  that  be  true,  we 
must  resign  ourselves  to  the  conclusion  that  we  cannot 
moralize  industry  without  destroying  it;  that  industry 
and  morahty  are  somehow  inconsistent  with  one  another. 
We  should  be  slow  to  accept  that  pessimistic  conclusion. 
The  man  who  maintains  that  the  present  industrial  system 
and  methods  are  the  embodiment  of  a  high  ethical  prin- 
ciple certainly  cannot  have  made  a  careful  and  unpreju- 
diced study  of  it.  The  consciousness  that  the  present 
system  is  not  ethical  is  increasing  in  the  ranks  of  both  the 
successful  and  the  unsuccessful  classes.  It  must  continue 
to  increase  as  the  system  is  carefully  scrutinized  in  its 
principles  and  processes ;  and  if  the  reorganization  of 
industry  on  a  high  ethical  basis  cannot  be  accomplished 
without  killing  it,  we  have  certainly  come  up  squarely 
against  a  terrible  dilemma. 

Are  we  not  prone  to  underestimate  the  strength  of  the 
grip  which  the  moral  motive  has  upon  the  hearts  of  men  ? 
If  we  look  at  the  question  from  the  standpoint  of  the 
behevers  in  Christianity,  shall  we  confess  that  our  religion 
has  really  accomplished  so  little  after  all  these  centuries? 
If  we  reject  the  pretensions  of  Christianity  and  look  at 
the  matter  simply  from  the  point  of  view  of  moral  evolu- 
tion, are  we  prepared  to  admit  that  there  has  been  in 
fact  so  little  progress?    Personally,  I  cannot  take  such  a 

385 


Addresses  World's  Social  Progress  Congress 

pessimistic  view  of  the  moral  advancement  of  the  race. 
Look  at  the  truly  colossal  contributions  of  money  for 
beneficent  purposes.  Can  any  man  whose  heart  is  not 
black  with  pessimism  attribute  these  mainly  to  motives 
of  vain-glory?  That  motive  doubtless  plays  a  role  in 
much  of  it,  but  I  refuse  to  believe  that  it  is  the  chief 
spring  of  this  mighty  stream  of  benevolence.  Men  find 
increasing  delight  in  doing  good  to  their  fellows.  And 
if  the  moral  motive  is  strong  enough  to  make  men  part 
with  much  of  their  gains,  is  it  reasonable  to  suppose  that 
it  would  be  so  much  weaker  than  gain  as  a  motive  to 
work?  Much  of  the  work  of  the  world  is  motived  by 
the  altogether  wholesome  desire  to  be  self-supporting; 
much  of  it  by  the  laudable  desire  for  honorable  distinc- 
tion; much  of  it  by  the  equally  praise-worthy  desire  to 
achieve,  to  give  adequate  expression  to  one's  self  in 
creative  effort.  All  these  legitimate  desires  may  be  grati- 
fied under  the  control  of  the  great  ethical  motive  of  pro- 
moting human  welfare,  just  as  in  the  old  order  of  things 
they  have  been  organized  under  the  domination  of  the 
motive  of  gain.  Unless  my  vision  is  distorted,  there  are 
signs  all  about  us  that  the  ethical  passion  is  becoming  too 
strong  to  be  much  longer  tolerant  of  a  system  of  eco- 
nomic life,  organized  on  an  unethical  principle  and  re- 
pressive of  the  nobler  impulses  and  aspirations  of  hu- 
manity. Under  an  ethical  system  there  would  be  multi- 
tudes of  men  wilHng  to  work  with  zeal,  and  it  is  absurd 
to  suppose  that  such  men  constitute  a  weaker  and  in- 
competent class.  Probably  many  of  those  who  are  now 
active  would  relax  their  endeavor,  but  the  net  result 
would  be  to  select  and  bring  to  the  leadership  of  industry 
those  who  respond  readily  to  the  ethical  ideal,  while  the 
class  who  are  insusceptible  to  this  incentive  would  drop  to 
the  rear  in  economic  life;  and  would  this  not  be  a  de- 

386 


The  Principles  of  Social  Progress 

cided  improvement  upon  the  present  situation  ?  It  would, 
unless  we  are  willing  to  maintain  that  common  sense, 
energy,  and  executive  ability  do  not  go  well  with  high 
ethical  qualities. 

In  conclusion,  then,  we  may  define  social  progress  either 
in  terms  of  social  organization  or  in  terms  of  personality. 
If  we  fix  attention  upon  the  structural  relations  of  so- 
ciety, progress  consists  in  the  extension  of  popular  control 
over  all  social  functions  and  in  directing  all  social  activ- 
ities to  popular  welfare  as  their  end.  The  social  system 
becomes  more  vast  and  more  complex,  more  interde- 
pendent, and  if  its  control  is  centered  in  a  few  individuals, 
its  increasing  vastness  and  complexity  place  in  the  hands 
of  the  controlling  persons  a  power  that  constantly  becomes 
more  extensive  and  more  nearly  absolute.  At  the  same 
time  it  removes  them  farther  and  farther  from  contact 
with  those  who  are  subject  to  their  will.  Hence  the  con- 
ditions as  they  develop  must  drive  us  either  in  the  direc- 
tion of  an  oligarchy,  the  power  of  which  grows  greater 
and  at  the  same  time  falls  into  the  hands  of  a  relatively 
smaller  group  of  men,  or  in  the  direction  of  a  democracy 
wherein  all  the  people  have  a  voice  in  all  the  affairs  which 
concern  all  the  people.  Manifestly  progress  lies  in  the 
latter  direction.  But  it  is  perfectly  manifest  also  that 
democracy  is  not  a  workable  method,  except  as  all  social 
activities  are  moralized.  If  the  various  individuals  and 
specialized  groups  are  dominated  by  the  motives  of  indi- 
vidual or  corporate  gain,  they  inevitably  clash  with  one 
another.  Out  of  the  struggle  some  will  emerge  trium- 
phant, and  power  will  fall  into  the  hands  of  a  relatively 
few  persons,  and  even  if  the  forms  and  pretenses  of  dem- 
ocracy remain,  its  soul  is  gone.  Democracy  can  become 
a  genuine  reality  only  as  all  social  functions  are  moral- 

387 


Addresses  World's  Social  Progress  Congress 

ized  and  the  social  order  becomes  a  system  of  public  serv- 
ices operated  in  the  spirit  of  service. 

But  the  structural  aspect  of  the  matter  is  really  sec- 
ondary. Social  progress  must  in  the  last  analysis  be  de- 
fined in  terms  of  personality.  To  moralize  social  activ- 
ities means  to  subject  them  to  the  motive  of  human  wel- 
fare. But  a  man's  welfare  means  essentially  the  develop- 
ment of  his  personality.  As  pointed  out  before,  a  person 
as  he  develops  beyond  a  quite  low  stage  must  cease  to  be 
self-centered  in  his  aims,  purposes,  sympathies.  His  con- 
sciousness of  kind  must  expand  to  include  wider  circles 
of  his  fellow-men ;  at  the  same  time  his  consciousness  of 
individuality  must  deepen  and  his  personality  become 
more  autonomous.  Now,  social  progress  must  be  meas- 
ured by  the  proportion  of  the  people  who  are  given  suf- 
ficient opportunity  for  and  sufficient  stimulation  to  per- 
sonal development  in  this  sense.  It  involves  an  adequate 
supply  of  material  goods  for  all  important  physical  needs ; 
but  is  not  so  much  a  matter  of  the  quantity  of  material 
goods  as  it  is  of  their  equitable  distribution.  It  involves 
education  which  will  fit  each  man  to  do  his  particular 
work  well,  and  fit  him  also  to  enjoy  his  right  as  an  heir 
of  all  the  past  achievements  of  the  race  and  as  an  intel- 
ligent partner  in  all  the  achievements  of  his  own  gener- 
ation. It  involves  ample  leisure,  especially  for  those  who 
must  do  the  more  monotonous  tasks  of  drudgery,  for  the 
very  reason  that  they  do  not  get  in  their  work  the  stimu- 
lation of  their  higher  capacities.  Leisure  cannot  be  so 
urgently  claimed  although  needed  by  those  whose  work 
itself  furnishes  stimulation  to  their  higher  powers;  for 
stimulation  of  the  higher  powers  is  the  essential  thing. 
The  measure  of  progress  is  the  proportion  of  the  people 
whose  personalities  are  developed  approximately  to  the 
maximum  of  their  capacity. 

388 


The  Principles  of  Social  Progress 

Using  this  standard  as  a  measure,  can  we  say  that  so- 
ciety has  made  appreciable  progress  in  all  its  changeful 
history?  It  is  difficult,  of  course,  to  apply  such  a  stand- 
ard as  this  to  the  conditions  of  any  given  age?  The 
conclusion  reached  will,  in  the  nature  of  the  case,  be 
based  upon  "impressions"  rather  than  upon  accurate  sci- 
entific measurements.  But  we  are  quite  safe  in  saying 
that  the  progress  accomplished  is  by  no  means  commen- 
surate with  the  gigantic  and  age-long  striving  of  human- 
ity. There  are,  indeed,  not  wanting  historical  students  of 
great  learning  who  seriously  question  whether  the  race 
can  be  said  on  the  whole  to  have  made  any  notable  and 
substantial  progress.  This  is  surely  too  pessimistic  a  con- 
clusion. There  can  be  no  reasonable  question  that  the 
proportion  of  men  who  in  the  modern  world  realize  in 
some  important  measure  the  possibilities  of  their  human- 
ity is  considerably  greater  than  it  was  in  the  ancient  or 
the  medieval  world.  But  this  qualified  statement  seem.s 
to  be  the  most  that  the  facts  will  justify  us  in  claiming. 
And  this  is  a  sad  confession.  Why  does  humanity  climb 
the  hill  of  progress  at  such  a  snail's  pace  ?  Is  this  all  that 
it  is  possible  to  show  for  the  colossal  struggles  and  suf- 
ferings of  the  masses  of  men  and  the  truly  divine  aspi- 
rations and  sacrifices  of  the  world's  saints  and  martyrs? 
Why  should  progress  be  so  slow  ?  I  trust  that  in  the  fore- 
going discussion  the  reason  has  been  intimated  if  not 
clearly  expressed.  Men  have  been  strangely  slow  in  ap- 
plying their  ethical  principles  more  broadly  as  their  social 
fife  expanded.  The  supreme  issue  that  confronts  us  now 
is  whether  we  shall  faithfully  apply  our  ethical  principles 
to  the  vast  industrial-political  system  that  has  grown  up 
as  a  result,  in  large  part,  of  the  marvelous  mechanical  in- 
ventions of  the  last  century  and  a  half,  and  the  way  in 
which  we  meet  this  issue  will  determine  whether  we  shall 

389 


Addresses  World's  Social  Progress  Congress 

go  backward  or  wander  around  aimlessly  in  a  veritable 
wilderness  of  social  difficulties  or  take  a  long  stride  for- 
ward toward  the  goal  to  which  sages  and  saints  have 
pointed  as  the  destiny  of  humanity  on  this  planet.  I 
cherish  the  hope  that  we  shall  do  the  last,  and  in  doing 
so  we  shall  approximate  the  divine  ideal  of  Jesus— the 
kingdom  of  God. 


390 


Chapter  XXXII. 

THE  CHURCH  AND  THE  CHALLENGE  FOR 
SOCIAL  ADVANCEMENT. 

BY   FRANCIS  J.    m'cONNELL. 

I  wish  to  begin,  if  I  may,  with  an  illustration  that  in 
these  later  days  has  become  somewhat  familiar  to  you. 
I  have  myself  heard  it  a  number  of  times.  It  is  said  that 
there  is  in  the  ordination  service  to  the  Buddhist  priest- 
hood, one  question  which  is  repeated  seven  times  as  the 
candidate  is  led  from  station  to  station  in  his  ordination 
service;  this  one  question  is  put  to  him  repeatedly,  and 
that  one  question  is  this,  "Art  thou  a  human  being?" 
That  is  repeated  seven  times. 

Now,  that  question,  as  uttered  in  the  ordination  service, 
has  no  particular  reference  to  the  appHcation  that  I  wish 
to  make  of  it  this  afternoon,  because  Buddhism  has  not 
made  any  great  contribution  in  the  way  of  an  answer  to 
that  question,  or  suggested  any  remedy.  That  question 
we  have  to  confront  as  we  consider  the  forms  of  human 
progress,  and  the  question  the  Church  has  to  keep  in 
mind.  The  minister  of  God  need  not  be  a  sociological 
expert,  but  he  must  call  attention  to  the  general  consider- 
ations which  must  be  kept  to  the  front.  There  have  been 
a  great  many  stages  of  social  advance  since  Jesus  Christ 
walked  this  earth,  and  we  say  that  the  spirit  of  Christian- 
ity has  been  back  of  all  of  these.  He  did  not  lay  down 
any  detailed  system  of  progress,  he  announced  certain 
general  principles,  certain  conceptions  of  human  life,  and 
made  those  conceptions  prevail  in  the  thinking  of  his  day 
and  every  succeeding  day;  and  it  is  the  business  of  the 

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Addresses  World's  Social  Progress  Congress 

Christian  minister  to-day  to  keep  these  ideals  to  the  fore- 
front, and  in  that  way  he  can  perhaps  do  more  than  in 
any  other  single  way. 

Our  Lord  felt  free  to  criticize  the  social  institutions  of 
his  time  from  the  standpoint  of  their  effect  on  human  life, 
and  we  have  sometimes  taken  his  principles  so  much  as 
a  matter  of  course  that  we  have  failed  to  see  how  revolu- 
tionary they  were  when  they  were  first  uttered.  "The 
Sabbath  was  made  for  man,  not  man  for  the  Sabbath." 
When  those  words  were  first  uttered  they  seemed  to  the 
persons  who  heard  them,  a  pestilent  heresy,  a  radicalism 
beyond  all  of  our  modern  conception;  there  is  hardly 
anything  a  man  could  say  to-day  more  radical  in  its  effect 
than  those  words  were  then.  The  Master's  whole  atti- 
tude toward  the  institutions  of  his  time  was  a  practical 
attitude.  He  did  not  simply  pick  out  this  or  that  par- 
ticular thing,  but  it  was  an  attitude  of  criticism  from  the 
standpoint  of  a  fundamental  approach. 

Take  the  parable  of  the  Good  Samaritan.  We  have  had 
it  interpreted  to  us  simply  as  an  individualistic  parable, 
simply  teaching  the  duty  of  a  man  to  help  his  neighbor 
in  distress.  Sometimes  it  has  been  taken  in  that  way ;  but 
then  the  student  of  social  science  comes  along  and  says 
we  must  go  farther  than  that,  it  teaches  that  it  is  the  busi- 
ness of  society  to  police  the  road  from  Jerusalem  to  Jeri- 
cho, and  of  course  that  is  worth  while;  but  the  whole 
point  of  it  was  this:  it  was  a  criticism  of  a  system;  the 
system  of  the  priests  and  Levites,  which  was  such  that 
they  could  walk  down  a  road  and  see  a  man  stricken  and 
pass  by  on  the  other  side,  and  still  be  priests  and  Levites 
in  good  and  regular  standing.  The  criticism  was  of  the 
system  which  prevented  them  from  doing  their  duty  as 
neighbors  to  the  man  by  the  roadside. 

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The  Church  and  the  Challenge  for  Social  Advancement 

We  have  to  raise  that  question  concerning  any  system ; 
every  Httle  while  we  have  to  break  up  systems,  just  lor 
the  sake  of  breaking  them  up,  because  they  have  become 
too  mechanical.  We  send  a  political  party  into  the  wilder- 
ness because  it  is  running  too  smoothly;  it  becomes  a 
machine,  and  men  forget  the  great  interests  they  should 
serve,  and  the  party  becomes  an  end  in  itself.  So  it  is 
with  social  institutions,  when  they  fail  to  serve  any  longer 
the  larger  human  interests  which  they  are  intended  to 
serve.  The  Church  has  done  this,  and  we  understand 
now  that  the  Church  is  not  an  end  in  itself.  When  we 
look  upon  it  merely  as  an  organization,  we  get  away  from 
the  standpoint  of  Jesus  Christ,  and  something  has  to  come 
along  to  wrench  us  back  to  the  proper  perspective. 

"Are  you  willing  to  be  damned  for  the  glory  of  God?" 
That  was  once  considered  a  very  pertinent  question. 
That  is  the  sort  of  question  that  comes  from  the  system 
which  forgets  about  human  interests.  A  system  which 
asks  that  kind  of  a  question,  expecting  an  affirmative  an- 
swer is  inhuman,  and  when  a  system  becomes  inhuman, 
the  only  thing  to  do  with  it  is  to  break  it  up,  or  bring  it 
somehow  to  a  better  focus.  The  same  thing  is  true  of 
the  state  as  an  organization.  Why  does  the  state  exist? 
Simply  as  a  thing  itself?  Not  at  all.  It  can  be  broken 
up  when  it  ceases  to  serve  the  great  human  interests. 
Why  do  schools  exist,  or  anything  else,  unless  for  the 
sake  of  the  human  beings  upon  this  earth?  Humanity 
has  a  certain  right,  you  might  call  it  the  right  of  emi- 
nent domain;  the  pressure  of  humanity  for  a  larger  life. 
As  Jesus  said,  "I  am  come  that  ye  may  have  life,  and 
have  it  more  abundantly."  That  is  the  spirit  back  of 
modern  progress,  and  that  must  be  kept  in  mind. 

What  should  be  the  attitude  of  the  state,  is  the  question 
that  is  continually  coming  up,  in  many  forms.    What  is 

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Addresses  World's  Social  Progress  Congress 

the  effect  of  modern  society  upon  the  man  ?  What  kind 
of  man  does  the  church  produce?  What  kind  of  man 
does  the  school  produce?  What  kind  of  man  does  the 
state  produce,  or  our  modern  social  and  industrial  organ- 
ization ? 

J.  A.  Hobson  has  written  a  book  on  "Wealth  and  Hu- 
man Evils,"  a  consideration  of  the  modern  industrial  sys- 
tem, and  it  is  the  only  book  of  the  kind  of  which  I  know. 
We  have  taken  a  great  many  things  for  granted ;  we  have 
too  often  overlooked  the  human  values  produced  by  the 
system  under  which  we  live.  Take,  for  instance,  the 
modern  doctrine  of  property.  Sacred  is  it?  Not  a  bit 
of  it.  In  a  purely  incidental  sense ;  in  the  sense  that  I  am 
not  to  appropriate  any  of  your  belongings,  but  that  is  a 
matter  for  the  police ;  but  in  the  sense  that  we  cannot  ask 
any  questions  about  it,  not  at  all.  Not  in  the  sense  that 
we  can't  go  down  to  the  bottom  of  modern  property  hold- 
ing. Sometimes  we  talk  about  the  sacredness  of  property 
as  if  it  were  something  we  couldn't  ask  any  questions 
about.  That  is  a  great  mistake,  and  in  fact  one  of  the 
best  things  going  on  to-day  is  a  scrutiny  into  the  various 
forms  of  property  holding.  There  is  a  book  written  by 
Oxford  men  which  is  a  consideration  of  property  rights, 
and  they  all  come  to  the  same  conclusion,  to  the  funda- 
mental conception  that  property  has  no  right  at  all  ex- 
cept what  is  granted  to  it  by  society,  and  as  a  socially  con- 
venient instrument.  There  is  one  thing  more  important 
than  property,  and  that  is  human  life.  Human  values 
must  be  kept  uppermost,  and  the  worst  mistake  in  this 
world  is  the  idea  that  any  kind  of  industrial  instrument  is 
more  valuable  than  the  lives  it  is  intended  to  serve. 

I  am  not  speaking  as  a  radical ;  but  we  must  face  what 
is  going  on  in  the  modern  world  and  take  some  stand.  I 
was  very  much  struck  by  a  recent  debate  between  Bishop 

394 


The  Church  and  the  Challenge  for  Social  Advancement 

Ryan  and  Morris  Hillquit  on  socialism,  and  I  was  im- 
pressed by  the  concessions  that  Ryan  made.  He  was  de- 
bating against  socialism,  but  he  said  that  he  believed  the 
time  would  come  when  the  taking  of  interest  would  be 
done  away  with.  The  Roman  Catholic  religion,  which 
stands  for  vested  rights,  will  go  as  far  as  that  in  making 
concessions  to  a  Socialist ;  across  Ryan's  book  was  written 
the  imprimature  of  the  Catholic  Church. 

Take  the  questions  of  rent,  property,  interest ;  we  must 
test  all  these  things  by  asking  what  kind  of  human  inter- 
est they  serve.  We  have  got  to  the  point  where  any  man 
who  takes  money  that  he  doesn't  earn  must  be  worth  the 
money  that  he  gets.  I  have  seen  men  that  I  would  like 
to  endow  because  they  are  good  people  to  have  around; 
men  of  artistic  impulses  and  fine  character,  and  I  don't 
begrudge  them  anything  they  get.  But  we  are  coming 
to  feel  that  a  man  ought  to  be  worth  what  society  pays 
to  keep  him  going.  Every  man  has  an  obligation  to  soci- 
ety. Back  of  every  man  here  is  a  long  line  of  men  who 
died  for  him ;  patriots  and  heroes  who  died  for  posterity, 
and  we  are  the  posterity  that  they  died  for,  and  that  is 
rather  a  sobering  reflection.  A  man  must  be  worth  to 
the  community  what  it  has  cost  to  rear  and  maintain 
him.  There  is  no  sacredness  about  property  that  prevents 
raising  any  questions  about  it. 

Take  our  modern  conditions  ;  what  type  of  man  do  they 
turn  out  ?  A  better  kind  than  some  other  conditions,  but 
man  has  not  yet  a  proper  chance  under  modern  industrial 
conditions.  The  majority  of  men  haven't  had  a  chance 
yet;  most  men  have  lived  and  died  without  any  chance, 
taking  the  world  over,  in  lands  beyond  the  sea  and  every- 
where else.  Most  human  beings  went  to  bed  last  night 
without  having  had  enough  to  eat  in  the  last  twenty-four 
hours ;  the  majority  of  persons  on  the  earth  are  actually 

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Addresses  World's  Social  Progress  Congress 

hungry;  the  present  industrial  arrangement  doesn't  fur- 
nish enough  food  to  alleviate  the  pangs  of  hunger.  It  is 
better  than  it  used  to  be,  and  it  will  be  better  a  hundred 
years  in  the  future  than  it  is  now,  because  the  Church  will 
keep  raising  these  questions,  and  thinking  in  terms  of 
men  and  women.  We  must  keep  in  mind  the  fundamental 
question:  What  is  the  effect  of  these  things  on  human 
life? 

There  are  certain  forms  of  social  movement  that  the 
Church  should  do  its  share  toward  controlling,  for  some  of 
these  things  are  getting  away  from  the  Spirit  of  Christ. 
There  is  an  increasing  social  discontent  in  this  country 
and  across  the  sea.  You  may  say  that  the  present  war  is 
stopping  it,  but  it  isn't;  it  is  increasing  it,  and  we  can 
predict  that  when  the  war  is  over  there  will  be  more 
power  in  the  hands  of  the  people  than  ever  before.  They 
will  just  wake  up  some  morning  and  be  in  possession; 
that  is  all.  This  movement  is  going  on  everywhere,  and 
it  must  be  controlled  because  it  is  dangerous  if  it  isn't. 
We  need  the  restraint  of  Christian  principles,  and  to  keep 
all  the  organizations  subservient  to  this  one  question: 
What  is  the  effect,  stated  in  human  terms?  Will  the  peo- 
ple be  better  off  ?  Have  they  a  chance  to  live  ?  Have  they 
an  opportunity  to  Hve  a  Christian  life  under  the  new  sys- 
tem which  may  be  proposed  ? 

Things  are  moving  with  tremendous  speed,  so  we  must 
have  some  control ;  we  must  change  the  course  of  some 
things.  I  knew  an  old  man  who  used  to  pray,  "Lord, 
send  us  quick  acting  grace."  That  is  a  good  prayer  to- 
day, because  of  the  rapidity  of  the  changes  which  are 
going  on.  Some  changes  are  being  made  too  fast,  be- 
cause there  is  a  lack  of  control,  and  we  have  to  go  back. 
There  are  more  Socialists  in  the  world  to-day  than  there 
are  human  beings  belonging  to  any  other  human  organ- 

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The  Church  and  the  Challenge  for  Social  Advancement 

ization  under  the  stars.  I  don't  mean  parlor  Socialists 
or  persons  that  simply  sympathize  with  sociaHsm ;  I  mean 
people  who  have  voted  the  socialistic  ticket  in  the  last  five 
years;  organized  Socialists.  Yet  so  far  Christianity  has 
not  come  to  any  understanding  with  Socialism.  Now 
Socialism  certainly  needs  to  learn  something  from  Chris- 
tianity, and  Christianity  certainly  needs  to  learn  some- 
thing from  Socialism,  and  there  is  need  of  getting  to- 
gether on  this  matter  and  facing  certain  problems  to- 
gether. Let  me  say  that  I  am  not  a  SociaHst;  there  are 
certain  things  that  can  be  struck  out  of  Socialism  that  are 
doing  it  harm.  One  thing  is  the  materialistic  theory  of 
history.  Another  is  economic  determinism;  another  is 
the  idea  of  class  struggle  in  some  of  the  forms  in  which 
it  is  emphasized.  But  after  all  that  has  been  said,  there  is 
a  solid  body  of  opinion  inside  the  Church  and  in  Socialism 
that  ought  to  come  together  and  come  to  some  kind  of 
an  understanding. 

I  have  a  very  great  admiration  for  the  Roman  Catholic 
Church  in  some  ways  ;  but  it  is  annoying  to  have  a  Social- 
ist speak  of  the  Roman  Catholic  Church  as  if  it  were  the 
whole  Christian  Church,  and  then  hear  a  Roman  Catholic 
get  up  and  talk  about  the  whole  Socialist  system  as  if  it 
were  conceived  in  sin  and  born  in  iniquity.  It  is  a  move- 
ment that  is  about  as  significant  as  any  movement  in  the 
world  to-day,  and  we  should  come  to  some  understanding 
with  it,  and  every  good  man  in  the  Church  is  under  an 
obligation  to  consider  this  question. 

Take  the  problems  of  organized  labor.  We  don't  have 
very  much  influence  as  leaders  of  the  Church  in  the  coun- 
cils of  organized  labor,  and  one  reason  is  that  we  have 
never  come  to  any  understanding  with  even  the  better 
class  of  labor  leaders.  We  have  not  made  it  our  business 
to  find  out  and  show  our  sympathy,  and  so  things  happen 

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Addresses  World's  Social  Progress  Congress 

that  we  don't  approve.  We  are  in  a  sense  responsible  for 
these  things ;  too  often  we  do  not  try  to  grapple  with 
these  problems,  and  yet  great  mistakes  are  being  made. 

It  is  the  business  of  the  Church  to  make  the  kind  of 
social  atmosphere  in  which  it  is  easier  for  some  things  to 
happen,  and  harder  for  other  things;  that  is  what  the 
Church  is  for.  It  is  not  merely  to  convert  individuals; 
it  is  on  earth  to  make  it  as  easy  as  possible  for  people  to 
be  good ;  not  by  making  concessions  to  the  spirit  of  this 
world,  but  by  making  such  changes  in  the  atmosphere 
that  some  possibilities  will  be  done  away  with.  Men  are 
exposed  to  temptations  that  ought  not  to  be;  there  is  a 
moral  overstrain.  There  are  some  things  that  grow  here 
that  won't  grow  in  the  city  of  Denver ;  Denver  is  a  mile 
high,  and  some  plants  die  out.  So  there  ought  to  be  a 
moral  atmosphere  that  will  enable  some  things  to  grow 
and  others  to  die  out.  There  are  certain  crimes  that  used 
to  be  committed,  that  are  not  committed  now  because  the 
social  atmosphere  has  changed. 

It  seems  almost  too  much  to  say  now,  at  this  time,  that 
I  hope  the  time  will  come  when  the  thought  of  war  will 
be  absolutely  impossible ;  nevertheless  I  think  that  time  is 
coming.  The  peace  societies  are  going  to  help  and  the 
people  who  are  now  fighting  are  going  to  help,  and  it  will 
come  to  pass  that  the  moral  atmosphere  will  be  such  that 
we  will  no  more  think  of  settling  differences  between  na- 
tions by  war  than  we  now  think  of  settling  differences  be- 
tween intelligent  people  by  a  resort  to  fisticuffs. 

When  I  was  a  boy  I  used  to  read  books  of  geology, 
and  there  were  pictures  of  great,  ill-shaped  monsters 
which  went  wallowing  around,  and  I  used  to  dream  about 
them,  and  I  asked  myself.  Who  killed  them  all  off ;  there 
was  nobody  there?  Nobody  killed  them  off ;  they  died  off 
as  the  climate  changed.     So  great  changes  are  going  to 

398 


The  Church  and  the  Challenge  for  Social  Advancement 

come  about  in  our  social  life  as  from  the  God-consecrated 
lives  there  will  come  about  a  change  in  the  atmosphere 
that  will  make  some  things  absolutely  impossible,  and  will 
make  other  things  flourish  as  though  in  the  garden  of 
the  Lord. 

It  isn't  enough  for  you  and  me  to  get  together  this 
pleasant  afternoon  and  hope  for  these  changes ;  these 
sentiments  must  get  down  into  the  very  roots  of  a  man's 
life.  The  trouble  is  that  some  men  hardly  act  like  human 
beings.  I  was  standing  one  afternoon  on  Fifth  Avenue 
during  the  Easter  parade.  Down  the  street  they  came, 
the  automobiles  costing  thousands  of  dollars,  and  the 
dresses  costing  hundreds  of  dollars ;  just  one  vast  display. 
And  a  man  standing  at  my  side  said,  "Do  you  know  that 
this  is  what  makes  revolutionists  of  the  red-handed 
kind?"  I  said,  "What  do  you  mean?"  "Why,"  he  said, 
"this  useless  display.  Here  is  a  man  from  the  East  Side, 
not  far  off,  and  he  sees  all  this  useless  extravagance  and 
he  remembers  that  his  baby  is  sick  for  lack  of  proper  food, 
and  thinks  of  all  the  hardships  he  has  to  endure,  and  he 
goes  back  from  Fifth  Avenue  to  the  East  Side,  a  red- 
handed  revolutionary." 

What  is  that  Easter  parade?  Think  of  the  passion  of 
our  Lord.  What  is  this  parade  on  Easter  morning  but 
a  frightful  and  costly  exhibition  of  sheer  vulgarity  and 
bad  manners?  That  is  what  it  is.  Because  any  display 
of  wealth,  when  it  is  not  for  an  artistic  purpose,  is  abso- 
lutely unchristian,  and  we  must  stand  against  that  sort 
of  thing.  Clothes  are  supposed  to  be  just  the  setting  for 
something  spiritual  that  shows  in  the  face.  A  man  may 
live  a  perfectly  animal  life  at  one  end  of  the  scale  as 
well  as  at  the  other;  we  must  stand  against  human  an- 
imalism and  human  arrogance.  The  question  of  how  a 
thing  is  done,  the  manner  of  a  man's  bearing,  is  very 

399 


Addresses  World's  Social  Progress  Congress 

important.  The  attitude  that  men  have  taken  has  been 
back  of  as  many  revolutions  as  the  unearned  increment, 
and  that  has  been  back  of  a  good  many. 

We  say  that  the  most  important  thing  about  a  man  is 
his  idea  of  God.  How  does  he  get  his  idea  of  God  ?  Well, 
we  make  certain  abstract  statements,  but  they  do  not  take 
us  very  far.  What  makes  the  idea  of  God  effective  in 
this  world  is  the  incarnation  of  the  idea  of  God  in  the 
human  life ;  and  anything  that  gives  men  a  larger  concep- 
tion of  humanity  by  so  much  increases  their  conception  of 
God.  The  two  things  go  together  inevitably.  The  idea 
of  God  makes  for  a  worthier  idea  of  man,  and  a  worthier 
idea  of  man  makes  for  a  worthier  idea  of  God.  We  take 
the  best  there  is  in  human  life,  and  say  that  is  none  too 
good  for  the  conception  of  God.  On  the  other  hand,  if 
we  can  give  men  a  broader  life,  it  may  be  that  God  him- 
self will  have  a  larger  opportunity  to  reveal  himself.  But 
God's  day  will  never  come  until  we  work  Christianity  out 
in  all  its  social  implications;  then  we  can  turn  our  faces 
to  the  skies  and  ask  God  himself,  "Art  thou  a  human  be- 
ing?" in  the  sense  of  having  certain  human  qualities,  and 
we  shall  know  from  our  own  hearts  that  in  a  profound 
sense  God  is  human,  and  we  can  come  together  on  the 
plane  of  human  understanding.  Let  no  man  draw  a  line 
between  society  and  Christianity ;  let  us  live  for  the  truth 
in  our  separate  fields  and  God  will  sweep  away  these  in- 
fluences for  evil,  and  bring  in  the  day  of  the  kingdom  of 
God. 


400 


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(B6221sl0)476B 


YC   15020 


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